One of the hardest things about Samantha Casiano’s daughter’s death was the gifts. Friends, family, and well-wishers saw only a pregnant woman, not someone that was being forced to carry a fetus to term despite there being no hope for survival outside the womb. So, the little presents kept coming, earmarked for a girl named Halo who would never get to play with them.
“There were all these gifts,” says Casiano. “People could just tell I was pregnant. My kids kept having to say their sister died. They were forced to grow up so fast.”
At twenty weeks’ gestation, Halo was diagnosed with anencephaly, a neural tube defect (NTD) where the brain fails to fully form. Fetuses continue to grow physically in the womb, their essential functions maintained by the brain stem, but there is no higher cognitive function and no hope for life. Casiano’s doctor brought her pamphlets for specialized funeral services to underscore the fact that she would still be delivering this baby under Texas’s “pro-life” laws. Abortion was not an option.
The life expectancy of anencephalic babies post-birth is usually measured in hours. In Halo’s case, very harrowing hours. Casiano’s water broke at 32 weeks followed by vaginal bleeding, a dangerous event even for a fetus that has no significant health problems. Adding to the complications, Halo was breached. Doctors gave Casiano Pitocin to start contractions but hesitated to perform a C-section.
“They were in the shadows legally at that point,” she says. “They didn’t want to go to jail for performing an abortion.”
Halo was successfully born but spent her short life gasping for air and bleeding from the eyes. She was dead within hours, and the Casiano family had to watch.
“If you had a loved one in a car crash, and half of their brain was crushed, you could take them off of life support,” she says. “I didn’t have that option with Halo. We couldn’t spare her that pain.”
In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed decades of judicial precedent and overturned the constitutional right to an abortion won in Roe V. Wade. Texas immediately banned the medical procedure after six weeks of gestation, when most people do not even know they are pregnant.
There are supposed to be exceptions for medical necessity, but the law is vaguely worded and medically ignorant. At least two Texas women, Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain, have died in recent weeks seeking reproductive care from doctors afraid to perform abortions and risk going to jail. Many more have almost died. This state of medical carnage was often waved away by people who wanted abortion banned.
“Some people just don’t get it,” says Casiano. “Getting induced early can be part of abortion care. Pro-life people, they just don’t believe me. I was so mind blown.”
Casiano is one of several women who sued the state after the anti-abortion law denied them life-saving healthcare. Her story is chronicled in the documentary Zurawski v. Texas. Their case was rejected by the Texas Supreme Court. Since then, Casiano and others have been trying to raise awareness at the ballot box. Three members of the Texas Supreme Court are up for election this year, all of whom ruled for keeping the Texas abortion ban as is.
One of the primary targets of her anger is Sen. Ted Cruz, long a champion of the anti-abortion movement. Cruz celebrated the fall of Roe and the passage of an abortion ban in Texas. Even after Barnica died, he defended the law as “perfectly reasonable.”
Casiano, who lived through the effects of those laws, and she has one question for Cruz.
“Senator Cruz, what about my daughter’s tragic life was reasonable?” she says. “It makes my blood boil. I just don’t understand.”
