Abortion hearing witness confronts senators Cruz and Cornyn over her near-death ‘on their watch’

‘I nearly died on their watch’

The lead plaintiff of a lawsuit against the state of Texas’s new abortion restrictions tore into Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, the two Republicans who represent her state in the upper chamber of Congress, on Wednesday and accused them of being responsible for her nearly dying.

Amanda Zurawski testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday at a hearing entitled “The Assault on Reproductive Rights in a Post-Dobbs America”. The hearing examined the effects of various abortion restrictions passed by a flurry of Republican activity in the wake of the Supreme Court decision last year overturning Roe v Wade.

Ms Zurawski came close to death after doctors in the state allegedly informed her that while her pregancy would result in the loss of the unborn fetus, new Texas state laws prevented them from operating until the condition that had compromised her pregnancy further developed. What happened next was an agonising days-long battle with sepsis in the emergency room.

During her testimony, she argued that anyone who supports the kind of abortion restrictions in Texas — which prohibited most abortions after Roe’s fall — was responsible for her experience.

“I wanted to address my senators, Cruz and Cornyn,” she said “I would like for them to know that what happened to me is a direct result of the policies they support. I nearly died on their watch and I may have been robbed of the opportunity to have children in the future.”

Both Texas senators are members of the Judiciary panel; however, neither bothered to attend her testimony during Wednesday’s hearing. Both did participate in other parts of the hearing, however, including a moment where Mr Cruz accused Democrats of wanting abortion to be legal up until the moment that a baby is born; only 1 per cent of abortions in the United States occur after 21 weeks into the pregnancy, and only a small handful of states have no legal limit on how late into a pregnancy an abortion can be performed.

The Texas lawsuit is one of a handful of cases where supporters of abortion rights have argued that restrictions on abortions are directly endangering the lives of women, as they are written without concern for issues which complicate pregancies and in some cases force hospitals to delay treatment or refuse it entirely to pregnant women who need urgent care.

Other high profile cases have included a 10-year-old who fled the state of Ohio to seek an abortion after she was sexually abused.