In the United States, the Supreme Court of the state of Texas on Monday overturned a lower court’s decision that would have allowed an emergency abortion for a pregnant woman To Kate Cox based on a medical exemption.
Texas’ abortion ban is one of the strictest in the United States.
The Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled on the matter just hours after Cox’s lawyers announced that the woman had left the state to obtain an abortion.
According to the lawyers, Cox wanted to proceed with the legal proceedings despite the fact that she traveled elsewhere for the abortion.
The 31-year-old Cox, who lives in the Dallas area, already has two children. Cox’s fetus had been diagnosed with trisomy 18, which put her health and her ability to have more children at risk.
For about a week, she tried to get a special permission from the court to terminate the pregnancy.
Trisomy-18 is a congenital chromosomal mutation that causes developmental disorders. The majority of trisomy 18 pregnancies end in miscarriage or the child’s death shortly after birth.
The Texas abortion ban allows abortions with an exception when the mother’s life is in danger. Exception permission is not granted on the basis of fetal abnormalities.
The state’s attorney general is tight-fisted
A Texas lower court granted Cox permission to have an abortion last Thursday. After that, the Republican Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton urged the Texas Supreme Court to intervene.
According to Paxton, Cox had not shown that the pregnancy complications threatened her life.
In addition, Paxton’s office said, according to the Reuters news agency, that Texas courts are not meant to act as “pass-the-labels-to-get-abortions.”
The nine Texas Supreme Court justices who ruled in Cox’s case are all Republicans. The court held that Cox’s physician’s “good faith” assessment of the medical necessity of the abortion was insufficient for the state’s exemption.
According to the Texas Supreme Court, the abortion permit would have required that a doctor should have determined, based on his medical judgment, that Cox was in a “life-threatening condition” and the abortion was necessary to prevent her death or significant impairment of bodily functions.
– A woman who meets the requirements of a medical exemption does not need a court decision to obtain an abortion. The law gives doctors, not judges, the discretion and responsibility to use medical judgment based on each patient’s individual circumstances, the court wrote in its ruling, according to Reuters.
Kate Cox’s lawsuit significantly tests the scope of the medical exemption that allows abortion in Texas.
Cox’s attorney Molly Duane said, according to Reuters, that the court’s decision should anger every Texan.
– If Kate can’t get an abortion in Texas, who can? Kate’s case proves that exemptions don’t work, and it’s dangerous to be pregnant in states with abortion bans, Duane continued.
Last year, the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision, which guaranteed the right to abortion throughout the US. Cox’s lawyers say his lawsuit is the first since the reversal.
Cox had been about 20 weeks pregnant when she asked the court for special permission. Cox said she would have to have a third C-section if the pregnancy continued. It would jeopardize her ability to have more children. Cox and her husband hope to have more children.
Doctors were puzzled by the interpretation of the exemption permit
Cox said in court documents that although the doctors treating her believed the abortion was medically necessary for her, they refused to do it without a court order.
According to Cox, the doctors were wondering how the exemption would be interpreted.
Under Texas abortion laws, doctors could potentially have been punished for performing the procedure. They could have lost their medical licenses and been sentenced to a long prison term.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned shortly after the lower court’s ruling that the ruling did not protect doctors, hospitals or other entities from prosecution for violating Texas abortion laws. Paxton sent a warning letter to three hospitals.
Sources: AP, Reuters