MORE VIDEO
This video reenacts an interview of a woman suing the Texas government over its restrictive abortion laws in 2023. Seated in a corner of my living room—the intimate space of my home and studio—I read her statement, mirroring the original interview’s framing and tone. By grounding this performance in my domestic environment, the video connects personal spaces to larger narratives of reproductive rights, highlighting the pervasive and deeply personal impact of these laws on women across the U.S.
Captions accompany the video, presenting the woman’s testimony and the broader context of the landmark lawsuit. Her words and experiences, shared during an emotional two-day hearing in Austin, expose the devastating consequences of Texas’ anti-abortion policies, tying this individual story to a collective struggle for justice and autonomy.
Scene:
I sit looking at the camera. I am nervous. I look at my phone. I look at the camera and pretend I am not alone. I am sitting in my living room but I am also in my mind trying to connect to that day, to the interview I saw of this woman on the news. She asks viewers to imagine with her. So I imagine with her. I read from my phone.
Casiano is one of 13 women who have joined a landmark lawsuit against the state of Texas after being denied abortion care despite life-threatening pregnancy complications. She and others offered a stream of emotional testimony during a two-day hearing in Austin.
Casiano
Indulge me for a moment...and close your eyes.
I feel like my hands are tied. I have the skill, training, and experience to provide care but I’m unable to do so — it’s gut-wrenching. I am looking for clarity, for a promise that I’m not going to be prosecuted for providing care. We don’t want to practice in the state because we’re all paralyzed at providing standard obstetric care
Attorneys with the Center for Reproductive Rights say the lawsuit not only marks the first time women denied abortions have sued a state since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, but it’s also likely the first time abortion patients denied care have testified against a state since the historic reproductive rights case was filed in Texas in the early 1970s.
I wasn’t sick enough to get the care that I needed.
My healthcare team was anguished as they explained there was nothing they could do becuase of Texas anti-abortion laws. It meant with complete certainty, that we’d lose our daughter, my doctor could not intervene as long as there was a heartbeat.
It’s not only prosecuting women for terminating a pregnancy, but also prosecuting women who are accused of being pregnant and using drugs or some other conduct that the state claims is harmful to a fetus. And we’ve seen women incarcerated for stillbirths. These are women who wanted to give birth but are now punished because they didn’t produce a healthy baby.
Most women end up keeping their babies when they’re prevented from terminating a pregnancy, only making their lives more challenging, their struggle to take care of their families more challengingwhich puts them at risk of having their children taken from them.
We’re in a battle in this nation on this question of being free or being compelled to give birth, a question which we could trace all the way back to the institution of slavery and a question that was on the ballot or on — before Congress when it passed the Reconstruction Amendments: whether we’re going to have a nation that’s free or a nation that compels people to give birth for the benefit of the state.