The Texas Supreme Court paused Friday night a lower court ruling that had allowed an emergency abortion to a pregnant woman with a fetus in a fatal condition. The ruling was part of a rapidly-developing case that challenged the limits of Texas’ strict abortion bans. On Thursday, a Travis County judge granted the request.
A lower court’s decision that had permitted an emergency abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus is fatally ill was halted by the Texas Supreme Court on Friday night.
The decision was the most recent in a case that was rapidly developing and questioned the state’s stringent abortion restrictions. A judge in Travis County granted Kate Cox’s request for an abortion on Thursday, a 31-year-old mother of two, and shielded her doctor from civil or criminal liability. Trisomy 18, a chromosomal disorder that is almost always fatal for the fetus, has been identified as the cause of Cox’s pregnancy, and the 20-week-old woman has previously visited the emergency room many times.
The lawsuit stated that” continuing the pregnancy” “puts her at higher risk for serious complications threatening her life and coming fertility, including uterine rupture and hysterectomy.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton requested the Supreme Court to halt the order within hours of Thursday’s decision, arguing that Cox did n’t meet the requirements for medical exemption under the law prohibiting abortion in the state. In order to give the lower court more time to reach a decision, the state’s all-Republican Supreme Court announced on Friday that it was partially suspending the order “without regard to the merits.”
But for Cox, timing is crucial. According to Molly Duane, an attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is defending Cox, “while we still hope that the Court finally rejects the state’s request and does so rapidly, in this case we fear that justice delayed will be justice denied.” Cox’s attorneys stated in a filing on Friday that she is still female.
Women and doctors are arguing that infertile women with medical complications are not receiving the necessary care in a separate lawsuit that the state Supreme Court is also considering. The lawsuit is supported by the Center for Reproductive Rights. In Texas, abortion prohibitions are waived when the patient could pass away or be in” significant risk of substantial impairment of a major biological function.” However, Duane told the court next month that doctors are “terrified” to provide necessary care due to the law’s ambiguous language.
Cox is left waiting for a decision to be made and for her pregnancy to develop as the cases move through court. It is certainly a matter of if I will have to say goodbye, but when, she wrote in her petition. A lower court’s decision that had permitted an emergency abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus is fatally ill was halted by the Texas Supreme Court on Friday night. The decision was the most recent in a case that was rapidly developing and questioned the restrictions of the state’s strict abortion bans. A judge in Travis County granted the request for
The Texas Supreme Court paused Friday night a lower court ruling that had allowed an emergency abortion to a pregnant woman with a fetus in a fatal condition. The ruling was part of a rapidly-developing case that challenged the limits of Texas’ strict abortion bans. On Thursday, a Travis County judge granted the request.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/12/the-texas-supreme-court-is-halting-a-woman-with-a-fatal-fetal-diagnosis-from-getting-an-abortion/
