Jill Biden invites Austin couple to State of the Union to draw attention to abortion access

The Austin woman who nearly died after being denied medical attention due to Texas abortion laws will be one of First Lady Jill Biden’s guests in an address to Congress on Tuesday.

According to the White House, Amanda Zurawski and her husband Josh will join Biden in her box to watch the president’s annual speech to highlight the administration’s commitment to addressing access to abortion.

Zurawski’s water broke last year when she was just 18 weeks pregnant. Although her fetus could not ultimately survive, the heart activity still continued, so her doctor refused to induce labor, citing state abortion laws. Instead, they sent her home. Only after Żurawski developed sepsis, a life-threatening infection, did doctors agree to terminate her pregnancy.

The near-total ban on abortion in Texas allows the procedure to be performed only to save the life of a pregnant patient. But since the law went into effect this summer, doctors have reported delays in treatment due to confusion about exceptions and fear of prosecution.

READ MORE: State of the Union: Biden aims to give confidence in 2023 appeal

The Zurawskis helped Beto O’Rourke in his campaign against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last year, appearing in one of O’Rourke’s last commercials. During his campaign, Abbott expressed an interest in revising the abortion law so that doctors would not delay getting the necessary medical care needed to prevent life-threatening complications.

The White House has criticized the Texas ban on abortion, which went into effect shortly after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion last summer. President Joe Biden has said his top legislative priority will be to keep Democrats in control of Congress in the midterms. Republicans eventually flipped the House, but that didn’t stop a vocal group of Democrats from continuing to pass legislation to restore access to abortion.

Last summer, U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of Houston was a leading proponent of legislation protecting access to abortion, but the bill failed to pass the Senate, which at the time was evenly divided. Last week in the House of Representatives, she re-introduced a bill that enshrines the right to travel to states where abortion is legal.

The Zhuravskys will join Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador, and others from across the country as guests of the first lady. The White House also invited RoWon and Rodney Wells, parents of Tyre Nichols, and U2’s Bono for his HIV and AIDS efforts. They will sit down with the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff.

READ MORE: State of the Union 2023: What to look for during Biden’s speech

Members of Congress from Texas also bring their guests to the Union State, offering an opportunity for a political signal.

Rep. Michael McCall, a Republican from Austin, invited Roya Rahmani, the former Afghan ambassador, to show “the women of Afghanistan that they are not forgotten.” McCall has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s exit from the country, which opened the way for the Taliban to seize power and abolish women’s rights to education and free movement. McCall promised to investigate the administration’s departure as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Rep. Greg Kasar, Democrat of Austin, will bring along Brett Cross, whose daughter Uzia was killed in the Uvalde school shooting, along with 18 other children and two teachers. She was 10 years old.

Representatives Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, and Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, both reached across the aisle with their invitations. De La Cruz brought in Rep. Terry Canales, a Democrat representing her hometown, in an attempt to overcome the bitter partisanship of last year’s highly competitive South Texas election. Gooden will bring his former Texas House colleague Eric Johnson, a Democrat who is now the mayor of Dallas.

This article first appeared in the Texas Tribune. Read more: Jill Biden brought the Austin couple to State of the Union to draw attention to abortion

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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