This month, Center for Reproductive Rights attorneys were in Texas state court for a two-day hearing in a case brought on behalf of two OB-GYNs and 13 women who suffered severe pregnancy complications yet were denied abortions due to the state's abortion bans. The Center joined fellow advocates for gender equality at this year's Women Deliver 2023 Conference in Rwanda and the Center and local partners announced a new strategy to secure abortion access for all Kenyans.

United States

Texas Women Give Gripping Testimony Against State in Abortion Hearing

A two-day hearing in a Texas state court in Austin was held July 19–20 in Zurawski v. State of Texas, with gut-wrenching testimony by some of the women denied abortion care despite facing severe pregnancy complications that risked their health, fertility, and lives. The Center is representing 15 plaintiffs in the case—13 Texas women denied abortion care and two Texas obstetrician-gynecologists. We are asking for clarity from the courts on the practical definition of Texas's "emergency medical exception" rule under the state's extreme abortion bans. At the hearing, the state decided to go after the victims of its laws rather than re-examine the policies that have caused so much suffering.

Global

Center at the Women Deliver 2023 Conference

In a three-day conference in Kigali, Rwanda, Center leaders discussed their work to increase access to abortion worldwide and to amplify the goals of the global sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) movement with 6,000 advocates from 166 countries at the Women Deliver 2023 Conference: Spaces, Solidarity, and Solutions. The conference brought together grassroots and youth advocates and representatives from multilateral governments, the private sector, and philanthropies to address issues affecting the wellbeing of women and girls and to catalyze action to advance gender equality.

Africa

Center and Partners Strategize to Ensure Access to Abortion

Although Kenya's 2010 Constitution guarantees access to reproductive health services—a right affirmed by the Kenyan High Court—abortion remains inaccessible throughout most of the country. To address this lack of progress, the Center and its partners in the country's SRHR sector have developed a new strategy to secure abortion care and access for all Kenyans. "The Nakuru Strategy: Strategies to Implement Constitutional Provisions on Access to Safe and Legal Abortion in Kenya" takes a four-pronged approach to securing reproductive rights through legal and policy reforms, health systems strengthening, political mobilization, and community mobilization and movement building.

"Each of these women have been through the unthinkable and reliving that trauma in court was agonizing. No one should have to do that, but they did it to save other Texans from the same fate. They did it to hold the state of Texas accountable for the suffering their laws are causing."

—Molly Duane, Senior Staff Attorney for Center for Reproductive Rights