THE STORY EXCHANGE: New Documentary ‘Zurawski v Texas’ Follows Women Fighting Abortion Bans
By Claretta J. Bellamy
Several powerhouse women have come together to show, through the art of film, just how deadly abortion restrictions are.
Actor Jennifer Lawrence, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, are among the team of executive producers behind a new documentary, “Zurawski v. Texas,” which will be released this week in select locations.
The film follows Amanda Zurawski, a woman from Austin, Texas, who was denied an abortion in 2022 after her water broke when she was 18 weeks pregnant. Due to the state’s especially strict reproductive restrictions, which prevent doctors from intervening even when a person needs abortive care to survive, Zurawski developed sepsis, a severe internal infection, which almost took her life.
Zurawski was one of seven plaintiffs who banded together to sue the state of Texas. After the initial filing, more women joined the suit – more than 20 plaintiffs were involved, ultimately. In May, the Supreme Court ruled against Zurawski and the other plaintiffs, proclaiming that Texas’ abortion rules are constitutional.
The film’s director, Maisie Crow, said in a statement to Deadline that it was critical for her team to release the documentary not only in larger markets like New York City and Los Angeles, “but [to] make it available … in locations across Texas, to ensure Texans understand what these abortion bans mean in practice.” Several powerhouse women have come together to show, through the art of film, just how deadly abortion restrictions are.
“Zurawski v. Texas” will be released just two weeks before the presidential election, as political tensions run high while Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump visit Pennsylvania and other key swing states. The two candidates are reportedly neck-and-neck, with the latest polling from Emerson College showing Harris leading Trump by a mere point.
While the polls might be close, their views on abortion aren’t. During her campaign, Harris has made reproductive rights one of her top issues – it’s a drum she beat again at a recent rally in Atlanta. During the event, she called Trump “cruel” for his dismissive comments about the grieving family of Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old woman from Georgia who died of septic shock after being denied an abortion pill. “We’ll get better ratings, I promise,” Trump had said, when asked about Thurman’s family joining a call with the media during Fox News’ recent town hall.
The former president recently deemed himself a “protector” of women at a Pennsylvania rally, and claimed that women will not have to wonder about abortion access if he becomes president. Since 1999, however, Trump has espoused various, conflicting viewpoints on abortion – at one point, even stating that women who get abortions should get “some form of punishment.”
The two are vying for the top job amid a shaky patchwork of state abortion laws. At present, abortion is completely banned in 13 states, and 28 others have restrictions and provisions of varying degrees in place. All the more reason to tell the stories of what happens when women can’t get the care they need, experts agree.
At the recent Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, the elder Clinton said she doesn’t think “we can [over]estimate how important this film is … to break through the eye-rolling, the denial, the dismissiveness, the cruelty that has affected so many women’s lives and women’s futures in our country today,” per Deadline.
“This really is a film that … breaks through the indifference,” she added.