The Texas Supreme Court has decided to overturn a previous court decision that gave a pregnant woman the right to an abortion because the fetus was at risk of suffering from a fatal disease.
The decision, made by an all-Republican court, came just over 30 hours after a lower court ruled to grant the 31-year-old Dallas woman a temporary protection that would prevent the state of Texas from enforcing its abortion ban against her .
In Friday’s verdict, the higher court writes that it temporarily rejects the previous decision “without having taken into account the specific circumstances”.
The woman in the current case was 20 weeks pregnant when she decided to file what is believed to be the first lawsuit of its kind since the US Supreme Court last year overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which guaranteed the right to abortion.
Thursday’s ruling by the lower state court applies only to that specific case and not to other pregnant women in Texas, which has one of the toughest abortion laws in the entire United States.
The Dallas woman, who already has two children, found out she was pregnant for the third time in August. A few weeks later, she received the news that the fetus was at high risk of the so-called trisomy 18 syndrome, which means a high probability of miscarriage and stillbirth.
Doctors have also stated that the condition of the fetus could have serious medical consequences for the mother.
However, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton does not believe she meets the criteria for a medical exception to the state’s abortion ban, and therefore advocated swift action by the state’s top court.