This no-holds-barred investigation into Texas's overly restrictive abortion laws, led by Hillary Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence, cleverly presents reproductive health care as a bipartisan issue.
Judge rules on Texas abortion ban after two days of emotional testimony
If, prior to 2022, you were ever called “hysterical” for raising concerns that a woman’s constitutionally protected right to an abortion in the U.S. was essentially hanging by a thread, you’ll find an unflinching sympathizer in Molly Duane, the tireless attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights at the center of “Zurawski v Texas,” the unyielding, cumulatively disturbing new documentary from Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault.
Duane and her team have heard that word before, before the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that protected women’s reproductive freedoms. But here she is, in the aftermath of her worst fears coming true, fighting for those denied access to a necessary, sometimes life-saving medical procedure.
The legal battle that Crow and Perrault chart in their conventionally conceived but powerful film is against the titular state of Texas, which nearly completely banned abortions after the Supreme Court ruling, albeit with some exceptions for various life-threatening conditions. But as “Zurawski v. Texas” lucidly explains during its economical running time, shrewdly dealing in facts rather than heavy-handed sensationalism, the exemption law is so ambiguous that doctors are left in the dark about whether they can legally provide abortions to their patients, even in medically and logically no-brainer situations — nonviable pregnancies in which the baby would not survive birth and the mother’s long-term reproductive health would be irreversibly compromised.
