Amanda Zurawski nearly died while waiting for an abortion she didn’t want but desperately needed and doctors in Texas were refusing her. “My husband and I always knew we wanted children,” the 36-year-old American told Agence France-Presse from her home in Austin, the Texas capital. “Our baby was very, very wanted. In June 2022, when the United States Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion, Amanda Zurawski celebrated her long-awaited pregnancy after eighteen months of fertility treatment.
But, two months later, “everything changes,” she says. While preparing for the upcoming birth celebrations, she notices a problem. Once in the hospital, the doctors tell her that her cervix is ??dilated, after only eighteen weeks of pregnancy. She learns that a miscarriage is “inevitable” as the fetus is not viable. The only way to avoid complications is to terminate the pregnancy.
Very affected, Amanda Zurawski wants to move forward. “I wanted to be able to put that behind me, go through the trauma, and then start to grieve. But Texas, like many states, has banned abortions with rare exceptions since the Supreme Court ruling. After six weeks, abortion is not allowed unless the mother’s life is in danger. “The baby’s heart was still beating” and caregivers are not allowed to provide her with the much-needed procedure, she recalls. “So I had to wait until my life was in danger. »
At that time, “I wasn’t just grieving the baby, I was also terrified because I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she says. After three days, Amanda Zurawski went into septic shock. She spends several days in intensive care, fighting the infection. In addition to the trauma, she doesn’t know if she “will be able to get pregnant again.” The sepsis created a mass of fibrous tissue in her uterus and on one of her fallopian tubes.
The couple have since resorted to in vitro fertilization, hoping to finally be able to welcome the child they so much desire, in vain so far. At the same time, Amanda Zurawski has decided to dedicate her life to a cause: access to abortion.
She blames conservative officials who have pushed relentlessly, in Texas as in the rest of the United States, for more restrictions on abortion rights. “I almost died because of you,” she protests. “They say they’re doing this because they’re ‘pro-life’, but I don’t understand what’s ‘pro-life’ in all of this,” says Amanda Zurawski. “Why did I have to come close to death? Why are my future babies in danger? »
She decided to recount her painful experience in the hope of making certain opponents of abortion recoil. Amanda Zurawski, a white woman, married and integrated into working life, thinks that her profile makes Republicans uncomfortable. “They try to portray people in need of abortion as young, single, uneducated women of color,” she said. I do not fit into this box. I am part of the population that they believe will never need an abortion. »
According to Amanda Zurawski, ever-tighter restrictions on abortion rights in places like Texas are a “step back” in history, and mean more women will suffer. “People are going to die of it,” she predicted.
While continuing to try for a child, Amanda Zurawski works through “post-traumatic stress” and the “depression” it has caused. But the drama still haunts her. And, thinking about a possible new pregnancy, she worries: “In Texas, nothing has changed, so who says it won’t happen to me again? »
