On Monday, the Texas Supreme Court ruled against a woman seeking what her lawyers argue is a “medically necessary” abortion, prompting her to leave the state to undergo the procedure.
At approximately 20 weeks gestation, Kate Cox sued the state of Texas over its abortion law prohibiting all abortions with limited exceptions to protect the life of the mother.
Cox, a 31-year-old Dallas resident and mom of two, learned early on that her unborn child was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a chromosomal anomaly in which babies are born with a third copy of chromosome 18 instead of 2. Almost all pregnancies with this diagnosis end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Cleveland Clinic also writes that of the smaller percentage of unborn children who survive to their third term, nearly 40% “don’t survive during labor, and nearly one-third of the surviving babies deliver preterm.”
According to the Scottland’s NHS, babies diagnosed with Trisomy 18 have an approximate 12.3% chance of living longer than 5 years, meaning that Cox’s unborn child’s prognosis had considerable variables that doctors were not certain of. Despite this, Cox immediately sought a temporary restraining order from the judicial system, granting her the ability to undergo an abortion.
Cox and her husband, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that carrying the baby to term would threaten her future fertility. In the complaint, Cox’s lawyers argue that because she has had two previous cesarian surgeries (“C-sections”), carrying her child to term would place her at risk for “severe complications” such as uterine rupture, that may “threaten her life and future fertility.” Her physician, Dr. Damla Karsan, however, did not conclusively tell the court that, using her “reasonable medical judgment” (required by law), she believed the pregnancy would result in Cox’s death or pose a “serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”
Despite this, a district judge granted Cox a temporary restraining order on Thursday, allowing her to undergo an abortion procedure, ending the life of her unborn child, hours before Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the state Supreme Court to block the order. The higher court did so on Friday and issued a ruling on Monday, stating that the trial court “erred in applying a different, lower standard instead of requiring reasonable medical judgment.”
Additionally, the state Supreme Court asserted that Cox’s doctor “could not, or at least did not, attest to the court that Ms. Cox’s condition poses the risks the exception [that state abortion law] requires.”
“A woman who meets the medical-necessity exception need not seek a court order to obtain an abortion. Under the law, it is a doctor who must decide that a woman is suffering from a life-threatening condition during pregnancy, raising the necessity for an abortion to save her life or to prevent impairment of a major bodily function. The law leaves to physicians—not judges—both the discretion and the responsibility to exercise their reasonable medical judgment, given the unique facts and circumstances of each patient.”
Supreme Court of Texas
The Court acknowledged the sensitivity of the subject and of Cox’s situation, calling her unborn child’s diagnosis “tragic.” The ruling additionally stated that “No one disputes that Ms. Cox’s pregnancy has been extremely complicated. Any parents would be devastated to learn of their unborn child’s trisomy 18 diagnosis.,” but proceeded to further affirm that fetal anomalies, “even serious ones,” do not meet the necessary standards of a “heightened risk” to the mother required by state law.
On Monday, the Center for Reproductive Rights released a statement claiming that Cox “has been forced to leave Texas to get healthcare outside of the state,” and would be seeking a second-trimester abortion elsewhere.
