THE BIG BEND SENTINEL: Women sue the state over lack of abortion access in new documentary
By Mary Cantrell
TEXAS — The lives of three women traumatized by Texas’ abortion laws following the reversal of Roe v. Wade and their pursuit of justice is the focus of Zurawski v Texas, a new documentary by directors Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault.
The film, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival earlier this fall, will be shown at 5 p.m. Sunday, October 13, at the Marfa Public Library Community Room and at 6 p.m. Monday, October 14, at the Sul Ross Gallego Center Room, the “fishbowl.” Crow will be present for Q&As at each screening.
Having previously collaborated on Jackson, a 2018 film about the right to access reproductive healthcare in Mississippi, Crow and Perrault — editor-in-chief of the The Big Bend Sentinel and previous managing editor, respectively — said they began pursuing another film when Roe was overturned in 2022.
“We’ve had an idea to make a film about what’s happening with abortion in America since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization got taken up to the Supreme Court, and we’ve just been looking for the right story to tell,” Perrault said.
The directors didn’t immediately decide to focus on the Zurawski v. Texas case, they said, but after encountering “nothing but devastation” during their field research, were drawn to Center of Reproductive Rights lawyer Molly Duane, the lead attorney on the case and a main character in the film, for the level of hope her and her clients brought to the situation.
“It was the first time that we felt like, ‘Okay, there is hope. Someone is doing something. There is potential for these laws to change,’” Crow said.
The case marks the first time women testified on their own behalf in a court of law for access to abortion since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. The directors said they were further compelled by the personal stories of the women speaking out — lead plaintiff Amanda Zurawski as well as plaintiffs Samantha Casiano and Dr. Austin Dennard — all who needed abortions for medical reasons for which they were denied.
“We felt like these are all very brave, very strong individuals who were willing to put their names out there, as many of them say, to protect other women,” Crow said.
“They are choosing to put their faces to this case when abortion has continued to be stigmatized,” Perrault added.
Crow and Perrault began filming in March 2023, following not only court proceedings — one of the documentary’s pivotal scenes is when women take to the stand to testify during Texas Supreme Court arguments in November 2023 — but also the emotional turmoil the women and their families were experiencing as a result of child loss.
“We wanted to show that abortion is healthcare and that it’s not just a women’s issue, that this is about families at its core,” Perrault said. “This film shows that access to abortion is about being able to determine the future for your family. It impacts so many more people than just the woman herself.”
Zurawski, particularly, wanted the film to show the many ways being denied abortion care still impacts her life, something mainstream media stories didn’t dig into, Perrault said. “To us, it was really important to show that this wasn’t just an acute moment but something that lasts,” she said.
Noticeably absent during a Texas Supreme Court hearing scene are the names of the state’s attorneys questioning the women. Due to a judge’s restrictions, filmmakers were only permitted to have one camera on a tripod in the room and could not zoom or pan. Crow said they chose to position the camera towards the women testifying and to not name the attorneys because they felt like they were “the embodiment of the state itself.”
“We constantly wanted to remind viewers, this is the state of Texas that is saying this, this is the state of Texas that thinks that these laws are okay the way they are,” Crow said.
In keeping with that thinking, the directors chose not to interview the attorney general’s office or include input from the other side, allowing their legal actions in the case to speak for themselves, Crow said. “Our perspective was that the other side was playing out in these laws, in the questioning in the courtroom, the responses when the AG’s office appealed, the Medical Board hearing,” Crow said. “We felt like they were telling their story that way, and what we wanted to tell was the stories of those being affected by these laws.”
Crow said healthcare, bodily autonomy and personal freedoms were top of mind during the filming and editing of the project. Those themes are resonating with audiences where the film has screened, she said, often with women who shared similar experiences with the plaintiffs but live in states where abortion laws are less restrictive than in Texas.
“They were able to get care, and they found it so alarming that those same experiences they had had in this country, when Roe was the law of the land. They were shocked that now people can’t get care,” Crow said. “I think for a lot of people, they had never considered something like what [Zurawski] went through as needing an abortion. They didn’t associate that with abortion, but it is abortion.”
Crow began filming Zurawski v Texas shortly after giving birth to her own son. She said having experienced a traumatic birth herself gave her a personal understanding of how emotional and dangerous being pregnant can be, she said, which she carried with her throughout the filming process.
Zurawski v Texas will screen at nearly 20 film festivals this month, and impact screenings are planned in ballot initiative and swing states across the country. “We feel like it’s a really great educational tool for voters to understand what abortion bans mean in practice,” Crow said.
Jennifer Lawrence and Hillary Clinton are both executive producers on the film. Both Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, a professor of public health, have participated in panels on the documentary. “We’re very grateful that they were willing to use their platform to elevate the stories of the women in this film,” Crow said.