WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday lauded the five “courageous” women pressing in court to clarify the Texas abortion ban after doctors — fearing prosecution — refused to end their pregnancies despite medical emergencies.
“These women almost lost their lives when they were denied health care because of the state’s abortion ban,” Harris said, adding, “I would challenge the hypocrisy of people who say they care about life and then ignore the maternal mortality crisis.”
Harris has spearheaded the Biden administration’s public crusade on abortion rights since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June, ending a half century of constitutional protection for the procedure.
Speaking by phone with reporters, Harris cited one of the five plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed a week ago by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Amanda Zurawski, who attended President Joe Biden’s Feb. 7 State of the Union Address as an honored guest seated with first lady Jill Biden.
“She was pregnant and her water broke prematurely and she went to seek medical care and was repeatedly denied treatment,” Harris recounted, noting that the hospital relented “only after she developed sepsis, which almost killed her.”
Texas is one of 13 states that outlaws abortion entirely, under a ban enacted in 2021 to be triggered if the Supreme Court gave states such latitude.
The ban took effect on Aug. 25, two months after the justices replaced Roe with a new landmark ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Doctors who violate the ban risk $100,000 fines, life behind bars, and loss of their medical license.
The one exception is for “medical emergencies.”
The lawsuit filed March 6 on behalf of the five plaintiffs by the Center for Reproductive Rights alleges that each woman suffered “catastrophic harms” when providers refused treatment.
Most of the women ended up going out of state to end their pregnancies.
The lawsuit asks a Travis County judge to clarify that doctors can legally perform an abortion when a complication poses a risk of infection or bleeding, and when the fetus is unlikely to survive. It does not seek to overturn the state’s ban.
State Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office pointed to a guidance letter he released last summer that reiterated the law’s exemption as written, while also promising stiff enforcement.
Abortion rights groups contend that physicians and hospitals routinely err on the side of avoiding legal liability, rather than on the side of protecting women dealing with dangerous complications.
Researchers found that excess caution had become the norm in Texas even before the total ban, thanks to Senate Bill 8, which took effect a year earlier.
SB8 empowered citizen vigilantes to sue doctors, nurses and anyone else who helped a woman obtain an abortion. Few such lawsuits were filed. But the threat alone dramatically cut the number of abortions performed in Texas.
Amid reports last summer of hospitals turning away patients with serious complications for fear of violating the state’s abortion ban, the Texas Medical Association asked regulators to step in.
“Extremist so-called leaders in states around the country have proposed and passed new extreme laws to ban abortion and criminalized health care providers,” Harris said.
The vice president made no mention of another Texas lawsuit that has made national headlines in the last week:
Marcus Silva of Galveston County is seeking more than $1 million from three friends of his ex-wife who, his lawsuit says, helped her obtain abortion pills.
The couple divorced last month. According to the lawsuit, Silva’s then-estranged wife concealed and then ended a pregnancy last summer.
Harris cited a move in Florida to move from a 15-week ban to a six-week ban – which puts the cutoff well before most women know they’re pregnant.
She noted that 4 million women of reproductive age live in Florida, and because of its size, “a six-week ban would function as a regional ban wiping out access to care in the South.”
In coming weeks, a federal judge in Amarillo appointed by President Donald Trump, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, is widely expected to rescind approval of two drugs routinely used for medication abortions in early the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Abortion rights advocates have seen mail-order pills as a way for women to overcome state bans, because the federal government regulates both drugs and interstate commerce.
Mifepristone, also known as RU 486, was approved in 2000 to induce abortion. Misoprostol, approved in 2002 to treat gastric ulcers, is often used in conjunction.
More than half of all abortions nationwide are performed by medication.
Harris called the drugs “safe and effective” and denounced the “attack on the scientific process that is crucial for public health.”
“Think about what this means if extremists and politicians can override an FDA approval. ... What medication is next?” she said.
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