According to her attorneys, a lady who sued Texas to obtain an abortion for her high-risk pregnancy left the state to have the surgery.
After learning that her fetus had trisomy 18, a potentially catastrophic illness that doctors warned threatened her fertility, Kate Cox, 31, decided to have an abortion.
The Texas Supreme Court revoked the abortion exemption that had been granted by a lower court on Monday. Texas has one of the nation’s toughest laws against abortion.
Except in extremely rare circumstances where the expecting mother’s life is in danger, abortion is illegal in the state from the moment of conception. Proponents of abortion contend that the exception is too ambiguous and endangers the health of women.
In her legal documents, Ms. Cox claims that her doctors said they were “hands tied” to performing an abortion on her as long as her unborn child had a heartbeat.
It was thought that Ms. Cox’s case was the first to request a court-ordered abortion since the US Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2016, allowing individual states to regulate access to abortion.
Not long after Thanksgiving, she received her diagnosis. A chromosomal condition known as trisomy 18 usually ends in miscarriage, stillbirth, or the infant’s death during the first year of life.
On Thursday, a Texas judge made an exception for the mother of two. However, Attorney General Ken Paxton of the state swiftly vowed to bring criminal charges against any medical professionals who assisted her in getting an abortion.
Mr. Paxton also requested intervention from the state Supreme Court. The court complied, preventing Ms. Cox from getting an abortion for the time being as it considered the issue.
The state Supreme Court decided against Ms. Cox on Monday, a few hours after her attorneys had announced that she had left the state for the procedure.
The justices ruled that they had to honor the “policy choice” made by state legislators. Additionally, they decided that Ms. Cox’s physician had failed to provide the legally needed attestation that her safety was in danger because of a “life-threatening physical condition”.
“This past week of legal limbo has been hellish for Kate,” stated Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Centre for Reproductive Rights, the pro-choice organization that is defending Ms Cox.
She went on, “Her health is at stake.” She’s been in and out of the ER, and she was at her breaking point. She yearned so much to be able to heal at home with her family and receive treatment where she lives.” The Centre stated Ms. Cox was unavailable for comment and did not reveal where she had flown.
Although some counties have recently imposed such restrictions, there is currently no state law in Texas that forbids traveling outside the state to obtain an abortion. The largest county to do so was Lubbock County, which passed a law in October prohibiting anybody from paying for or transporting a pregnant woman through the county to get an abortion.
Last month, Molly Duane, an attorney for the Centre for Reproductive Rights, stated that doctors were “terrified” to practice medicine because of the nearly complete prohibition because they feared severe consequences.
Physicians who perform abortions in Texas face the possibility of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, losing their medical license, and spending life in prison.
After the Texas Supreme Court’s decision on Monday, Mrs. Duane spoke to the BBC and claimed that lawmakers “have created a state of fear in Texas on purpose to make people fearful of helping their loved ones.”
She called out as “misinformation” the myth that someone could face legal consequences for assisting one another in getting an abortion in a different state.
Attorney General Beth Klusmann’s attorney claimed that current guidelines permitted doctors to make “reasonable” medical decisions.
Another abortion lawsuit concerning the state’s health exception is currently being considered by the Texas Supreme Court.
Another group run by the Centre for Reproductive Rights has sued to make the current state bans clearer. The plaintiffs include doctors and women who were not allowed to have abortions in the state. They say the medical exception is dangerously unclear.
