Our Abortion Stories: Two Years of Texas’ S.B. 8

On this grim two-year anniversary, we lift up the stories of Texas women and their families who are fighting for the right to abortion care.
9/1/2023
by VAL DIEZ CANSECO and ROXY SZAL

Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. In Texas, this has been part of women’s reality for years.

Two years ago, Texas’ S.B. 8 became law: the six-week ban with a “bounty hunter” provision. At the time S.B. 8 took effect, it was considered the most restrictive abortion ban to ever take effect in the U.S. post-Roe.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/01/texas-abortion-stories-women-risk/

For one Texas doctor, abortion bans are personal and professional

August 21, 2023
Selena Simmons-Duffin
4-Minute Listen with Transcript

On a recent Friday night, as her husband made dinner at the family's home in Dallas and her toddlers ran around underfoot, Dr. Austin Dennard saw an email come in on her phone.

The judge who heard her testify last month in an Austin courtroom about Texas's abortion laws had reached a decision. Dennard is among 13 women who sued the state arguing that the current abortion bans are unclear when it comes to pregnancy complications. She is also an OB-GYN, and she's nearing the end of a healthy pregnancy – she was visibly pregnant while on the stand.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/21/1194482842/texas-pregnant-doctor-abortion-bans

21.08.2023

Center for Reproductive Rights

How a trial in Texas changed the story of abortion rights in America

August 9, 2023
By Sarah Varney

During the five decades that followed Roe v. Wade, lawsuit after lawsuit in states across the country chipped away at abortion rights. And again and again, the people who went to court to defend those rights were physicians who often spoke in clinical and abstract terms.

"The entirety of abortion rights history is a history of doctors appearing in court to represent their own interests and the interests of pregnant people," said Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas-Austin. But in July, in a Texas courtroom, the case for abortion was made by women themselves who had been denied abortions and sued the state to clarify the exceptions to its ban, which makes it illegal to perform an abortion unless a patient is facing death or "substantial impairment of a major bodily function."

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/09/1187378801/texas-abortion-law-trial-reproductive-rights

‘I Cried for Joy’: Texas Judge Blocks Texas Abortion Ban for Dangerous Pregnancies

While the Texas Supreme Court instantly blocked the injunction by filing an appeal, it was seen as a victory by reproductive rights advocates.

OLIVIA ROSANE
Aug 05, 2023

In what The Associated Press reports is the first legal pushback since an abortion ban took effect in Texas in 2022, State District Judge Jessica Mangrum issued a temporary injunction against the ban late Friday afternoon in the case of unsafe pregnancies.

While the Texas Supreme Court instantly blocked the injunction by filing an appeal, it was seen as a victory by reproductive rights advocates.

"For the first time in a long time, I cried for joy when I heard the news," lead plaintiff Amanda Zurawski said in a statement. "This is exactly why we did this."

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/news/texas-judge-blocks-abortion-ban

05.08.2023

News

Amanda Zurawski

Center for Reproductive Rights

Zurawski v. State of Texas

Judge’s order exempts Texas women with complicated pregnancies from state abortion ban

After three women testified last month detailing how the abortion ban delayed medically necessary care, a state district court judge issued a temporary exemption to Texas’ abortion ban in cases when the fetus is unlikely to survive.

BY WILLIAM MELHADO
AUG. 4, 2023

A Texas judge on Friday issued a temporary exemption to the state’s abortion ban that would allow women with complicated pregnancies to obtain the procedure and keep doctors free from prosecution if they determined the fetus will not survive after birth.

State District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum of Austin wrote that the state’s attorney general cannot prosecute doctors who, in their “good faith judgment,” terminate a complicated pregnancy. Mangrum outlined those conditions as a pregnancy that presents a risk of infection; a fetal condition in which the fetus will not survive after birth; or when the pregnant person has a condition that requires regular, invasive treatment.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/04/texas-abortion-ban-lawsuit/

05.08.2023

News

Amanda Zurawski

Center for Reproductive Rights

complicated pregnancies

Travis County judge sides with Texas women denied abortions after dangerous pregnancies

Ryan Autullo, Austin American-Statesman
Aug 4, 2023

A state judge in Travis County ruled Friday that abortions in Texas are lawful in cases of dangerous pregnancy complications, including fatal fetal diagnoses, and that doctors cannot be prosecuted for using "good faith judgment" on when to terminate a pregnancy.

The injunction from District Judge Jessica Mangrum, which the state immediately blocked Friday in filing an appeal, comes two weeks after four Texas women came to her court to give emotional testimony about not receiving an abortion, even as they suffered physically and after doctors deemed their pregnancies incompatible with life. It marked the first time women denied abortions have sued a state since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

Continued: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2023/08/04/austin-texas-judge-lifts-abortion-ban-for-women-with-risky-pregnancies/70534072007/

Lawsuit over Texas abortion ban could be a model in other states

BY: DAVID MONTGOMERY
AUGUST 2, 2023

AUSTIN, Texas — A lawsuit in Texas asserting that the state’s abortion ban imperils women by dissuading doctors from ending dangerous pregnancies could provide a template for similar challenges across the country.

Texas is one of 14 states that banned abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The Texas ban includes an exception that allows physicians to end a pregnancy if it could result in the death of the woman or a “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

Continued: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/08/02/lawsuit-over-texas-abortion-ban-could-be-a-model-in-other-states/

02.08.2023

News

Center for Reproductive Rights

Jessica Mangrum

Nicolas Kabat

Planned Parenthood Texas Votes

Women suing Texas over abortion bans give emotional testimony

The fifth woman's testimony will be heard on Thursday.

By Nadine El-Bawab and Mary Kekatos
July 19, 2023
Four plaintiffs began the first day of testimony Wednesday as part of a lawsuit filed against the state of Texas, saying the state's abortion bans put their lives in jeopardy.

The women are some of the 15 individuals party to the lawsuit who have alleged they were denied lifesaving emergency care due to Texas' abortion laws.

Lawyers representing the women are seeking a preliminary injunction on Texas' abortion laws that would allow for lifesaving abortions. They are asking the court to provide a "remedy applied to patients whose life, health or fertility is at risk from an emergent medical condition," Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead attorney on the case, said during opening statements Wednesday.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/women-suing-texas-abortion-bans-court-testify/story?id=101487004

Denied abortion for a doomed pregnancy, she tells Texas court: ‘There was no mercy’

July 19, 2023
Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR

AUSTIN, Texas – Samantha Casiano, who gave birth to a baby who lived just four hours, broke down and became physically ill on the witness stand as she told the story of her doomed pregnancy in an Austin, Texas, courtroom on Wednesday. Her husband, Luis Villasana, rushed to the front of the courtroom to help her, during a hearing in a case challenging the abortion bans in Texas.

Casiano was one of three women who gave dramatic testimony about their pregnancies in the case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights. The case, on behalf of 13 patients and two doctors, argues that the medical exceptions to Texas' laws are unclear and unworkable for doctors in ways that harm patients and that the state has done nothing to clarify its laws.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/19/1188828153/denied-abortion-for-a-doomed-pregnancy-she-tells-texas-court-there-was-no-mercy