Texas judge grants abortion request
Overrides state’s three strict bans
A Texas judge granted a request on Thursday to allow an abortion despite the state’s strict bans, ruling in the case of a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Travis County district court sided with the woman, Kate Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant, and issued a temporary restraining order to permit her doctor to perform an abortion without facing civil or criminal penalties under the state law.
The judge agreed with Cox’s lawyers that the procedure was necessary to protect Cox from a potentially dangerous birth, and to preserve her future fertility.
The ruling applied only to Cox. Her case is believed to be among the first attempts to seek a court-approved abortion since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year and allowed states to enact their own abortion restrictions.
“The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be pregnant, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability, is shocking, and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” the judge said at the conclusion of a roughly 30minute video hearing. “So I will be signing the order, and it will be processed and sent out today.”
Cox’s fetus was found to have trisomy 18, a genetic condition that in all but very rare cases leads to miscarriage or stillbirth, or to the infant’s death within the first year. Her lawyers said she had visited the emergency room four times because of pain and discharge — including once after her suit was filed Tuesday — but that doctors had told her that under Texas law, she had to continue her pregnancy.
Cox, 31, could be seen wiping away tears from her eyes as she watched the judge issue the decision in the video proceeding with her husband, Justin. She said in an interview Tuesday that she and her husband, who live in the Dallas area and have two young children, hoped for a big family and never planned on having an abortion.
The Texas attorney general’s office, which argued Thursday against granting the order, could still seek the intervention of a higher court. The office has said Cox did not qualify for a medical exemption to the state’s abortion bans.
Texas is at the forefront of states that restrict abortion, and has three overlapping bans that outlaw abortions from the moment of fertilization and allow citizens to sue others who help a woman obtain an abortion.
The laws provide for some limited exceptions to save the health and life of a pregnant woman. Abortion rights advocates argue that those provisions are unclear and put women with pregnancy complications at risk.
The Texas Supreme Court is currently weighing a broader effort by doctors, women, and abortion advocates to clarify the medical exceptions under the law in a separate casebrought by the Center for Reproductive Rights.