Two women directly affected by abortion bans in their states campaign in FL for Harris-Walz

Kaitlyn Joshua describes her experience with an unsuccessful pregnancy during a press conference in Temple Terrace on Aug. 14, 2024. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)

Texas resident Amanda Zurawski and Louisiana’s Kaitlyn Joshua made stops in Orlando and Tampa Wednesday on behalf of the Harris-Walz Democratic presidential campaign and described how their unsuccessful pregnancies were exacerbated by their physicians’ fears due to abortion bans.

Two years ago, Zurawski was 18 weeks pregnant with a fetus that she and her husband had already named Willow when her cervix dilated prematurely, “and there was no way to safely reverse course.”

This incident happened just a couple of days after Texas began enforcing a law effectively banning most abortions in the state. Despite the fact that her medical condition was fatal to the fetus and posed significant risks to her, Zurawski’s doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy because it could have been considered an illegal abortion rendering the doctor vulnerable to losing her license and going to jail.

Zurawski was told to wait “until I got so sick that my life was considered 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 crash into septic shock” before her doctor would provide the care she needed.

After her vital organs stabilized so that she could deliver the stillborn girl, she crashed again with another bout of sepsis and was transferred to the ICU, remaining there for three days as her family flew in from across the country out of fear that she wouldn’t survive.

“What I went through was nothing short of barbaric, but it didn’t need to happen,” Zurawski said during a press conference organized by the Florida for Harris campaign at the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee’s headquarters in Temple Terrace, just east of Tampa. “It did because of Donald Trump and his allies, who continuously brag about killing Roe v Wade . ”

In the case of Kaitlyn Joshua, just weeks after Roe was overthrown in 2022, she and her husband Landon were thrilled to learn she was pregnant with what have been their second child together. She learned the new rules of the road when she called to schedule her first prenatal appointment and was told to wait an entire month, she said.

‘Major blood loss’

Joshua asked whether that was because of the new law in Louisiana that banned most abortions and was told that “prenatal appointments were being scheduled later, when miscarriages are less common, to avoid potential legal liability for medical providers.”

Early on, unlike her first, successful pregnancy, Joshua began experiencing mild cramping and spotting. At 11 weeks of pregnancy and just one week before her first prenatal appointment, she started experiencing “major blood loss and pain worse than childbirth.” That’s when she drove herself to an emergency room in Baton Rouge and was informed by the medical team there that her fetus had “completely stopped growing.”

“I realized I was having a miscarriage, but because of the state’s abortion ban, the health care team was afraid to tell me what was happening,” she told reporters.

“They sent me home, saying they would pray for me. The next day, the bleeding and pain got worse. After being turned away the previous day, I met my mom and husband at a different hospital. At this point I was losing so much blood the security guard actually put me in a wheelchair.

“The standard treatment for a miscarriage, for those that may not know, what I was experiencing that moment is exactly the same treatment as abortion care. Yet in 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 me weeks to pass my pregnancy at home.”

( NPR reported in December 2022 that both hospitals that Joshua attended said in statements that their pregnancy care had not changed since Louisiana’s abortion ban passed. NPR also reported that it contacted the provider Joshua originally called for a prenatal appointment, who denied changing the timing of first appointments).

“Because of abortion bans, physicians simply cannot practice medicine based on their training and expertise,” Joshua told reporters Wednesday. “We are simply asking for the most basic level 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 the ending” of Roe v. Wade by selecting three conservative Supreme Court Justices who joined with two other justices in 2022 to overturn the 49-year-old Roe ruling legalizing abortions.

But he also recorded on videotape in April a statement saying that his policy on abortion now is that the individual states should make that decision, which means he wouldn’t endorse 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 to the states,” said Joshua.

“It creates this patchwork approach that does not protect all of us, and certainly doesn’t restore reproductive freedom. I think we also have to point out the fact that Donald Trump has flipped-flopped on this issue multiple times … and that’s too much risk to take.”

Unsuccessful litigation

In Zurawski’s situation, she became lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to force the state of Texas to allow doctors more discretion to intervene during medical complications. On May 31, the Texas Supreme Court rejected that legal challenge, saying that the medical exceptions in the law were broad enough, according to the Texas Tribune .

Zurawski said that she and Joseph have been traveling to swing states telling their stories on behalf of the Democratic presidential ticket since March and will continue to do so until Election Day.

“Wherever the campaign needs us, we’ll be there,” she said.

Their stops in Florida came on the same day that a new Florida Atlantic University poll showed that Florida’s proposed constitutional amendment to restore the right to abortion up until the point of viability (around 24 weeks) would lose if the election were held now. The measure received 56% support — short of the 60% threshold required for passage.

However, several other polls released in the past month have shown the measure passing with more than 60%.

Meanwhile, a different survey of more than 500 Florida women between the ages of 18 and 49 revealed on Wednesday that 29% were not aware of the law in Florida that now bans most abortions after six weeks. That law went into effect on May 1.

KFF, a health policy research group, conducted the survey . Their report also found that more than 70% of women between the ages of 18 and 49 in Florida believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, with 27% saying it should be illegal in most and/or all cases.