Title: 'Zurawski v Texas' Follows Women Denied Abortion Access

[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. In 2022, the state of Texas banned essentially all abortions. Medical providers are afraid to run afoul of the law with devastating real life consequences for many women and their families. Women who have been forced to travel out of state to receive critical medical care or to continue pregnancies in which they know the baby will not surv survive at extreme risk to their own lives.

One of these women is Amanda Zurawski, who at 18 weeks pregnant suffered a preterm pre labor rupture of membranes. She needed an abortion, but doctors refused because they could still detect fetal cardiac activity. Her health rapidly deteriorated and she developed sepsis. Though she survived, the infection compromised her future ability to have kids. She became the title plaintiff in the 2023 case Zurawskii v. Texas, the first lawsuit on behalf of women denied abortions since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

A new documentary follows Amanda and two other women who were similarly denied essential abortion care in Texas as they tell the stories of their health care journeys and bring their case to the Texas Supreme Court with the help of a lawyer from the Center for Reproductive Rights. I'm joined today by the film's co director, Maisie Crow. Hi, Maisie.

Maisie Crow: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: You've worked on other projects, I should say, about reproductive health in the past. What made you want to tell this particular story?

Maisie Crow: Sure. My first film about abortion access is called Jackson and it premiered in 2016 before the presidential election. That was a time when abortion access was still very tough for many people, especially low income women in places like Mississippi. When it was clear that Roe was going to be overturned, I was very eager to revisit this topic because I knew that things would continue to shift and become increasingly more impossible for individuals to access care.

it was really just a matter of waiting to see what the right narrative to tell was going to be. it was when I met Molly, Amanda, Samantha and Austin, who you meet in the film, it became really clear that the fight, the battle that they were waging was something very new. It was one of the first times since Roe v. Wade was decided in the '70s that women were putting their name on a lawsuit and coming forward and saying this is not okay. Something has to be done.

Alison Stewart: How was your experience working on the previous film? How did that affect this film?

Maisie Crow: For one, I developed a really nice relationship with the Center for Reproductive Rights. When I set out to make this film, there was already a trust built there, a willingness to let me in and document this historic lawsuit. Secondly, I spent many years in an abortion clinic in Mississippi, and I understood what access looked like. I understood how things had shifted so tremendously after Roe was overturned.

In terms of you had multiple states that simply had no more clinics. While in pre Roe, many women were having to travel out of state and far locations because of the declining number of abortion clinics, you had masses of women having to leave states and go very far. Then you had women in medical emergencies who were denied care that they would have received very quickly when Roe was in effect.

Alison Stewart: Your documentary opens with a really striking scene of Amanda Zurawski testifying before the Senate. As Amanda talks, the shot alternates between her speaking and various senators, including Lindsey Graham, who actually rolls his eyes during her testimony. Let's listen. Do we have that tape? Oh, we don't have that tape. We have the tape. We're going to listen for it. It's coming up. Let's go.

Amanda Zurawski: Chairman Durbin, ranking Member Graham, and members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. About eight months ago, I was thrilled to be cruising through the second trimester of my first pregnancy. I was carrying our daughter Willow, who had finally, blissfully been conceived after 18 months of grueling fertility treatment. My husband Josh and I were beyond thrilled.

Then everything changed. I had dilated prematurely due to a condition known as cervical insufficiency. Soon after, my membranes ruptured, and we were told by multiple doctors that the loss of our daughter was inevitable. My healthcare team was anguished as they explained there was nothing they could do because of Texas anti abortion laws. I was locked in this bizarre and avoidable hell. Would Willow's heart stop or would I deteriorate to the brink of death?

The answer arrived three long days later. My husband rushed me to the hospital, where we soon learned I was in septic shock. I was rapidly transferred to the ICU, where I would stay for three days as medical professionals battled to save my life. What I needed was an abortion, a standard medical procedure. As a result of what happened to me, I may have been robbed of the opportunity to have children in the future. Being pregnant is difficult and complicated enough. We do not need you to make it even more terrifying and frankly, downright dangerous to create life in this country. This has gone on long enough, and it's time now for you to do your job, your duty, and protect Us.

Alison Stewart: Amanda, at one point in the film, she's asked, does she ever decline an interview? She says no. Why has she felt that it's so important for her to tell her story?

Maisie Crow: After she says no, she never declined an interview. She goes on to say that after every interview and event she does, she hears from at least one person. I think that that's a really big part of it. Not only Amanda, but Samantha and Austin also talk a lot about normalizing the word abortion and everything that abortion encompasses and talking about it with your friends, your family, colleagues, because for so long before we were in this moment, there seemed to be a lot of shame around that word.

As all of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and the ones you meet in the film talk about, they think it's important to just as much as possible tell their stories so that people have a real understanding of what's happening to women and families in states where abortion is banned.

Alison Stewart: She's a very strong woman in the documentary, but we see that she's hurting. She talks about how she developed an eating disorder. How does fighting this fight impact her life?

Maisie Crow: When I met Amanda for the first time, one of the things that we asked her was what's not being covered in the media? At that point she had done a number of interviews. She said the long term traumatic effects of being denied abortion care, they're hard for people to understand unless they see it and experience it. when we set out to make the film, we wanted to make sure that we included things like that, and that includes Amanda's eating disorder.

I think in pursuing the lawsuit, in continuing to speak out about what happened to each of them and their different stories, there's a lot of power in that. They are claiming their narrative. I think that many of the plaintiffs have connected with each other and built a bond. As Amanda says, this is the worst club that nobody wants to be in, but once you're in it, it's like a family. There's so much love for and support for each other. It's really been a privilege for Abby and myself to witness that and to be alongside them as they continue to share their stories and talk about what's happening.

Alison Stewart: It's a tough story, and you had to make some tough decisions as a director. You essentially show the funeral of a child that died after being four hours alive because those could not get an abortion. What went into that decision?

Maisie Crow: You're talking about Halo's funeral. Halo is Samantha Casiano's daughter. Halo was born and lived for four hours because she was diagnosed with anencephaly. Samantha, when she learned of the diagnosis, asked what her options were and was given a piece of paper with funeral homes listed on it. It was very clear to her that she had no options other than to continue with a pregnancy that was causing her a lot of emotional and physical anguish.

When we met Samantha, it was the night before Halo's funeral, and we were welcomed to her home. One of the first things she said was, "The state of Texas wants Halo to be here. I need them and everybody else to understand what that means, to understand what that means for Halo, but also for my other children and for my family." As we went to the funeral and continued to film Samantha's story, we always had a check in on, "Are you comfortable showing this? Are you comfortable talking about this?" She never wavered. She felt that everybody needed to see Halo's face, that everybody needed to hear Halo's story and that people needed to really understand what this looked like on the ground.

Her children are still coping with the loss of their sibling and trying to understand what it means to have a sibling that only lives for four hours. As Samantha says in the film multiple times, she wanted to release Halo and let her go into heaven sooner rather than later because she knew that her daughter would not survive. She felt that an abortion was the best thing for her and for her daughter who wouldn't live.

Alison Stewart: My guest is the co director of Zurawski v Texas, a documentary. Her name is Maisie Crow. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It. You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Maisie Crow. She's one of the co directors of the new documentary Zurawski v Texas. It follows women in Texas who were denied medically necessary abortion care and the case they brought to the Texas Supreme Court.

By the way, the film will be screened tonight at the Hamptons Doc Festival. The person we follow in the film who represents the law side of things is Molly Duane. She works for the Center for Reproductive Rights. The film follows these women as they prepare to testify for this text Texas state court hearing. Basically, what was women's case?

Maisie Crow: Sorry?

Alison Stewart: What was the case against that was going to be in the Texas Supreme Court?

Maisie Crow: Sure. The case that was filed was an effort to clarify the medical exceptions. There was a lot of uncertainty in the law in Texas, so women were being denied care because doctors didn't know at what point in a medical emergency they could provide care. As you see in the film, they win at the lower court and then ultimately lose at the Supreme Court of Texas.

Alison Stewart: One of the things that's interesting in the film, and it takes a little while for you to reveal it, is that Molly's got a hold of her life as a mom, and she's got kids to take care of. Why did you want us to see this aspect of her life? We're used to seeing her as just a tough lawyer. She's in it to win it. But then you see her as a mom.

Maisie Crow: I think once you get to know Molly, it's nice to reveal that layer. I mean, many people who work in any industry and work very hard, are parents, and they're often juggling many things. I think it adds more to the humanity of who she is as an individual to see her fighting so hard for women to make decisions about their families and how they want to build their families, and then to learn that she's a mom of two young kids who's putting them down at night and then going into her home office to keep working and to talk to potential plaintiffs as she builds this legal argument.

Alison Stewart: When you were first filming in Texas in the courthouse, what were your parameters? What were you allowed to film? What weren't you allowed to film?

Maisie Crow: We had to go to court and ask for permission to film the lawsuit. We didn't find out until about 12 hours before that court hearing that we would be able to film. We really had to scramble to get everything assembled. One of the requirements was that we had to put the camera on a tripod, and we couldn't zoom or pan or change our shot throughout the day. We were in Austin, Texas, and very frantically tracked down an 8K camera because we thought, if we can vary the shots, we can at least zoom in on the frame in the edit.

That's what we did. We walked in the courtroom, and before the legal team or anyone else came in there, we had to determine our frame. We weren't exactly sure where anyone would be standing except for the judge and the plaintiffs, so we really chose to focus on that. I will say that the state of Texas did not want us to film in there. they actively fought back, saying that they thought it was a violation of the women in the lawsuits privacy. Now, as a reminder, we were already following the women who were testifying, so that seemed like an argument that wasn't actually in line with the reality of the situation.

Alison Stewart: What was Texas's point of view in the case?

Maisie Crow: This felt like the women in this lawsuit were denied care because of their doctors. They repeatedly tried to place the blame on the doctors, even though each plaintiff said, "It's not my doctor's fault. I could see the sadness in my doctor's eyes when they couldn't tell me what my options were. When they couldn't tell me where to go. I could see the pain on their faces."

There has not been a doctor sued for not providing abortion care in Texas because I think the majority of people recognize that it's not the doctors who are standing in the way of care, it's the state's refusal to define the exceptions. What they do define very clearly is the punishments for any doctor providing an abortion that the state deems not medically emergent enough. A doctor can spend basically the rest of their life in prison, 99 years, get a $100,000 fine and lose their medical license. We're seeing a real chilling effect on doctors and doctors not providing care.

Alison Stewart: One of the things the film does really well is it shows a lot of scenes of the women and their families and particularly their husbands. What did you hope to show about the way that abortion bans impact everyone in the family?

Maisie Crow: Thanks for asking that. I think for too long it's been a conversation about women and women needing to speak up, women needing to do something. I think the reality is that abortion bans affect everybody. You see that when you meet the partners and the husbands of the women in this film. I think it's been long felt that men need to join this fight and men need to understand that it impacts them as well.

One of my favorite moments was actually with Samantha's 11 year old son who as his mother is packing, asks her what is the court case about? Samantha says, "We're going to fight on behalf of other women so they don't have to go through what I went through and what Halo went through." Without missing a beat, her son says, "I really support that. I'm glad you're doing that. We don't want other women to have to go through this." It's really profound to see an 11 year old understand what seemingly many of the politicians in Texas do not.

Alison Stewart: What scenes or what portions of the film were particularly challenging for you?

Maisie Crow: I think any of the very vulnerable and emotional moments were a challenge. We worked very closely with each of the women in this film and became very close to them. I consider them all good friends of mine. To see them suffering and in pain is hard. You don't want to see anyone going through that. There's a point in the film when Amanda learns that her surrogate did not get pregnant. I think we went into that day really convinced that Amanda was going to get good news. It was devastating and shocking for all of us when she didn't. To see her go through the range of emotions of being told that once again she wasn't going to have a child, it was particularly devastating.

Alison Stewart: The name of the film is Zurawski v Texas. It's a documentary. I've been speaking with its co director, Maisie Crow. The film will be screening tonight at the Hamptons Doc Festival and hopefully be screening more times around New York City. Hey, Maisie, thank you so much. We really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today.

Maisie Crow: Thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to be on the show.

Alison Stewart: That is all of it for today. Want to give you a quick update. Our Get Lit with All Of It is not happening in December, but we will be back in January. We are going to be reading Richard Price's new novel, Lazarus Man. It's the story of a group of people who find themselves displaced after their tenement building collapses in East Harlem. You can join me and Richard Price for our January 28th event at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library at 6:00 PM. Tickets are free, but you know you should reserve them. We tend to sell out. Go to wnyc.org/getlit.

[music]

Alison Stewart: Hey. The nominees for the Golden Globes are announced recently. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we'll hear from Vulture film critic Nate Jones about all of the surprises and snubs. We want to know about your favorite films of the year. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I will meet you back here tomorrow.