Texas women give harrowing testimony on impact of extreme abortion ban

Samantha Casiano outside court in Austin. Casiano was forced to give birth to a baby who died four hours later as a result of a fatal birth defect. Photograph: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images

Texas women who were denied abortions took the stand and delivered harrowing testimonies of their experiences of carrying life-threatening pregnancies as a result of the state’s high restrictive abortion laws.

The women are part of a lawsuit filed in March by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is seeking clarification on which situations fall under the “medical emergency” exception in Texas’s abortion bans. The lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind in which women who were denied abortions are suing a state since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year.