Two women directly affected by abortion bans in their states campaign for Harris-Walz in FL • Florida Phoenix
Texan Amanda Zurawski and Louisiana native Kaitlyn Joshua stopped in Orlando and Tampa on Wednesday on behalf of Harris-Walz’s Democratic presidential campaign and described how their unsuccessful pregnancies were made worse by their doctors’ fears about the abortion ban.
Two years ago, Zurawski was 18 weeks pregnant with a fetus she and her husband had already named Willow when her cervix dilated prematurely “and there was no way to safely reverse the process.”
This incident occurred just days after Texas passed a law that effectively bans most abortions in the state. Even though her medical condition was fatal to the fetus and posed significant risks to herself, Zurawski’s doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy because doing so could have been considered an illegal abortion, which could have resulted in the doctor losing her license and going to prison.
Zurawski was told to wait “until I was so sick that my life was in danger, which is one of the rare exceptions in Texas where a doctor can actually intervene,” she said. It took three days and a “near-death fall into septic shock” before her doctor could get her the treatment she needed.
After her vital organs stabilized and she was able to deliver the stillborn baby girl, she suffered another bout of sepsis and was transferred to the intensive care unit, where she remained for three days while her family flew in from across the country, fearing she would not survive.
“What I went through was nothing short of barbaric, but it didn’t have to happen,” Zurawski said during a press conference organized by the Florida for Harris campaign at the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee headquarters in Temple Terrace, east of Tampa. “It happened because of Donald Trump and his allies, who constantly brag about overturning Roe v Wade..”
In Kaitlyn Joshua’s case, she and her husband Landon were thrilled to learn she was pregnant with their second child together just weeks after Roe was overturned in 2022. She learned of the new rules when she called to schedule her first prenatal appointment and was told she would have to wait a full month, she said.
“Major blood loss”
Joshua asked if this was due to the new law in Louisiana that bans most abortions. He was told that “prenatal visits are scheduled later, when miscarriages are less common, to avoid possible legal liability for medical personnel.”
Unlike her first, successful pregnancy, Joshua began experiencing mild cramping and spotting early on. At 11 weeks pregnant and just a week before her first prenatal appointment, she began experiencing “heavy blood loss and pain worse than labor.” She then drove herself to an emergency room in Baton Rouge and was informed by the medical team that her fetus had “completely stopped growing.”
“I knew I was having a miscarriage, but because of the abortion ban in this state, the medical team was afraid to tell me what was happening,” she told reporters.
“They sent me home and said they would pray for me. The next day, the bleeding and pain got worse. After being turned away the day before, I met my mother and husband at another hospital. By this point, I was losing so much blood that the guard actually put me in a wheelchair.
“The standard treatment for a miscarriage – for those who may not know, what I was experiencing in that moment – is exactly the same treatment as an abortion. But at that second hospital, the staff told me, ‘We’re not doing that right now.’ They told me to go home and wait. Ultimately, it took weeks before I was able to finish my pregnancy at home.”
(NPR reported in December 2022 that both hospitals Joshua visited said in statements that their pregnancy care had not changed since the passage of Louisiana’s abortion ban. NPR also reported that it contacted the doctor Joshua had originally called for a prenatal appointment, and the doctor denied changing the timing of the initial appointments.)
“Because of the abortion ban, doctors simply cannot practice their profession based on their training and expertise,” Joshua told reporters on Wednesday. “We are simply asking for the most basic form of maternal health care, but because of Donald Trump, we are being denied that basic care.”
Trump has boasted that he was “proudly the person responsible for ending” Roe v. Wade by selecting three conservative Supreme Court justices to join two other justices in 2022 to overturn the 49-year-old Roe ruling legalizing abortion.
However, he also made a videotaped statement in April in which he said his current policy on abortion is that it should be up to individual states, meaning he would not support a federal ban on the procedure.
Democrats continue to insist that he would ban abortion nationwide.
“I think that’s the dangerous part – this idea of leaving it up to the states,” Joshua said.
“It creates a patchwork of policies that does not protect any of us and certainly does not restore reproductive freedom. I think we also need to point out that Donald Trump has changed his mind on this issue several times… and that is too big a risk.”
Unsuccessful litigation
In Zurawski’s case, she became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to force the state of Texas to give doctors more discretion when medical complications arise. On May 31, the Texas Supreme Court dismissed that lawsuit, saying the law’s medical exemptions were broad enough, according to the Texas Tribune.
Zurawski said she and Joseph have been traveling to swing states since March to tell their stories on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidates and will continue to do so until Election Day.
“We will be wherever the election campaign needs us,” she said.
Their stop in Florida came on the same day that a new poll from Florida Atlantic University found that Florida’s proposed constitutional amendment to restore abortion rights up to the point of viability (about 24 weeks) would fail if the election were held now. The proposal received 56% approval – just under the 60% threshold needed for passage.
However, several other polls published last month showed that the measure was approved by over 60%.
Meanwhile, another survey of more than 500 women ages 18 to 49 in Florida on Wednesday found that 29 percent of them were unaware of a Florida law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, which went into effect May 1.
The poll was conducted by KFF, a health policy research group. Their report also found that more than 70% of women ages 18 to 49 in Florida believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. 27% say it should be illegal in most and/or all cases.
