Texas judge grants pregnant woman permission to get abortion despite ban
AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas judge on Thursday gave a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis permission to get an abortion in an unprecedented challenge over bans that more than a dozen states have enacted since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The lawsuit by Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two from the Dallas area, is believed to be the first time since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that a woman has asked a court to approve an abortion.
The order only applies to Cox, and her attorneys afterward spoke cautiously about any wider impacts, calling it unfeasible that scores of other women seeking abortions would also now to turn to courts.
“This can’t be the new normal,” said Marc Hearron, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “I don’t think you can expect to see hundreds of cases being filed on behalf of patients.”
State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, an elected Democrat, granted a temporary restraining order allowing Cox to have an abortion under what are narrow exceptions to Texas’ ban. Her attorneys said they would not disclose what Cox was planning to do next, citing safety concerns.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office argued that Cox does not meet the criteria for a medical exception, issued a statement that did not say whether the state would appeal. But in a letter to three Houston hospitals Paxton warned that legal consequences were still possible if Cox’s physician provided the abortion.
Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant, attended the hearing via Zoom along with her husband but did not address the court.
Doctors have told Cox if the baby’s heartbeat were to stop, inducing labor would carry a risk of a uterine rupture because of prior cesareans sections, and that another C-section at full term would endanger her ability to carry another child.
“The idea that Ms. Cox wants so desperately to be a parent and this law may have her lose that ability is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” Gamble said.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Cox, has said this lawsuit is believed to be the first of its kind since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Since that landmark ruling, Texas and 12 other states rushed to ban abortion at nearly all stages of pregnancy.