State of the Union: Abortion opponents object to claims about Jill Biden guest
Abigail Adcox
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Anti-abortion groups pushed back on the idea that restrictive abortion laws deny treatment to women who face miscarriages after a Texas woman whose life-threatening miscarriage brought attention to the state’s abortion laws last year attended Tuesday’s State of the Union speech as first lady Jill Biden’s guest.
The woman, Amanda Zurawski, had her water break when she was 18 weeks pregnant last year, but her doctors declined to induce labor, citing Texas’s abortion laws that restrict terminating a pregnancy unless the mother’s life is in danger. Zurawski later developed sepsis before receiving medical intervention. Her case has drawn national attention, with abortion rights groups citing her case as an example of the harms of restrictive abortion laws, leading to her invitation to join Biden.
Abortion opponents, though, said that the laws in question are being misrepresented.
“There are no laws in any state that prevent timely and compassionate care for a miscarriage — which is the exact care Ms. Zurawski was in need of,” the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists tweeted. “Denying proper healthcare to patients facing miscarriage complications is not complying with the law. Miscarriage care is not abortion.”
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The Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to elect anti-abortion candidates, tweeted: “Let’s be very clear: every pro-life law in the country allows necessary and timely medical treatment to save the life of a pregnant woman in an emergency.”
The White House nodded to Texas’s abortion law announcing Zurawski’s invitation to the speech.
“Her doctors were unable to intervene to help her because they were concerned that providing the treatment she needed would violate the Texas abortion ban, which prohibits abortion care unless a woman’s life is in danger, ” the White House said in a statement. “Zurawski developed sepsis and nearly died because of the delay in receiving treatment. She continues to suffer from medical complications due to the delay.”
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The Texas couple’s attendance is intended to draw parallels between the Democrats’ efforts to expand access to abortion following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and GOP-led laws that restrict access to the procedure, as President Joe Biden re-upped calls to codify abortion access in Tuesday’s speech.
“Congress must restore the right the Supreme Court took away last year and codify Roe v. Wade to protect every woman’s constitutional right to choose,” Biden said. “The vice president and I are doing everything we can to protect access to reproductive healthcare and safeguard patient safety. But already, more than a dozen states are enforcing extreme abortion bans.”