Berliner Tageszeitung - Showdown in Texas after judge says 'yes' to abortion under strict law

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised the threat of legal action under the state's strict abortion laws after a judge ruled a woman with a potentially life-threatening pregnancy can obtain an abortion.

District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble said that Kate Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant, should be permitted to have an abortion under a medical exception provision of the Texas law that allows the procedure when a woman's health is at risk.

Paxton, a conservative Republican, objected to the finding and said the "activist" judge's order does "not insulate hospitals, doctors or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas' abortion laws."

The Texas suit is one of a number brought since the Supreme Court last year overturned Roe v. Wade, the case which granted a constitutional right to abortion five decades ago.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented Cox, said it believed the Texas case was the first in which a woman was asking a court for an emergency abortion since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

Cox, 31, a mother of two from Dallas, learned last week that her fetus has full trisomy 18, a fatal genetic condition.

"All of her doctors have told her that the baby will be stillborn or will live for only minutes, hours or days," attorney Molly Duane said during the emergency court hearing held over Zoom.

Duane said the pregnancy poses multiple health risks to Cox and her future fertility and falls within the medical exception to Texas's abortion laws.

"In the state's eyes, Ms. Cox simply isn't sick enough, isn't close enough to death, to qualify for the exception," Duane said. "It is clear that the attorney general of Texas thinks he is better suited to practice medicine than the physicians of his state."

Johnathan Stone, representing Texas, argued that the abortion should not be allowed until a full hearing of the medical evidence is held. "The abortion once performed is permanent and cannot be undone," Stone said.

That was met with a blistering reply from Duane.

"I would just note that the harm to Ms. Cox's life, health and fertility are very much also permanent and cannot be undone," she said.

- 'Miscarriage of justice' -

The judge, after hearing arguments from both sides, granted a temporary restraining order allowing Cox to get an abortion.

"The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be a parent and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice," Gamble said.

Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, accused Paxton, the attorney general, of "fear mongering" with his threats of legal action against a doctor or hospital that performs Cox's abortion.

"He is trying to bulldoze the legal system to make sure Kate and pregnant women like her continue to suffer," Hearron said.

Texas has some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation, prohibiting it even in cases of rape or incest.

Texas physicians found guilty of providing abortions face up to 99 years in prison, fines of up to $100,000 and the revocation of their medical license.

The Texas law does allow abortions in cases where the mother's life is in danger but physicians have said the wording is unclear, leaving them open to legal consequences.

Texas also has a law that allows private citizens to sue anyone who performs or aids an abortion.

The Texas Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a case brought on behalf of two doctors and 20 women who were denied abortions even though they had serious -- in some cases life-threatening -- complications with their pregnancies.

The lawsuit argues that the way medical exceptions are defined under the state's abortion restrictions is confusing, stoking fear among doctors and causing a "health crisis."

The Texas Supreme Court is expected to soon issue a decision whether to block the state's abortion bans in cases such as Cox's.

S. Soerensen--BTZ