A pregnant woman in Texas was briefly unable to get an emergency abortion on Friday, just hours after the state’s attorney general asked the court to do so. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national constitutional right to abortion last year, the court case is a major test case.
This is because states like Texas can now pass laws that make abortion almost illegal. Because Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked them to earlier that day, the Texas court overturned a lower court’s decision to allow the emergency abortion.
It said, “Without a view to the merits, the Court administratively stays the district court’s December 7, 2023 order.” The decision came out late Friday. Kate Cox, 31, from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, asked the court for permission to have an abortion because her unborn child was identified with trisomy 18 on November 27.
This is a genetic disorder that usually leads to miscarriage, stillbirth, or death soon after birth. In her claim, Cox, who is about 20 weeks pregnant, said that she would have to have her third C-section if she kept the pregnancy going. That might make it harder for her to have more kids, which she and her husband want.
Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said, “We still hope that the Court rejects the state’s request in the end and does so quickly. But in this case, we fear that justice delayed will be justice denied.”
Thursday, District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble agreed with Cox and issued an order that only applied to Cox and did not make it easier for more people to get an abortion. But Paxton asked the state’s top court to step in because he had already said that any doctors who helped with the emergency abortion could be charged with a crime.
“Nothing can restore the unborn child’s life that will be lost as a result,” the file stated. There is a small exception to the state’s abortion rule if it is needed to save the mother’s life or keep her from seriously losing the ability to do something important for her body.
In her case, Cox said that her doctors thought she needed an abortion for medical reasons, but they wouldn’t do it without a court order because they knew they could go to jail for life or lose their licenses. At a hearing in an Austin courtroom on Thursday, Guerra Gamble said, “The idea that Ms. Cox wants to be a parent and that this law might make her lose that chance is shocking and would be a horrible injustice.”
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