A woman who is 21-weeks pregnant is seeking an abortion outside of Texas after the state’s Supreme Court blocked a lower court order on Friday allowing the procedure.
The pregnant woman and Dallas mother of two Kate Cox, 31, has already left the state to have an abortion, her attorneys said Monday, according to USA Today. The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit on her behalf to obtain an abortion after she learned that her unborn baby has Trisomy 18, otherwise known as Edwards syndrome.
“She’s been in and out of the emergency room and she couldn’t wait any longer,” Nancy Northup, chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the publication.
Trisomy 18 is a very severe genetic condition that can cause multiple birth defects — 95 percent of babies with the condition do not survive full-term, and ten percent of babies born with the condition typically do not survive past their first year, according to the Cleveland Clinic. There are rare cases of people born with Trisomy 18 living much longer, such the daughter of former Republican U.S. senator and pro-life advocate Rick Santorum, Isabella, who is now 15 years old. A 2020 scientific journal also describes a 26-year-old woman diagnosed with the condition who has “severe growth and intellectual limitations” but has lived much longer than expected.
The Center for Reproductive Rights did not elaborate as to where Cox went to have the abortion or if the abortion has already taken place.
“We’re taking it day by day,” Cox told PBS NewsHour on Friday. “It’s a hard time. It’s a lot of grief. We’re grieving the loss of a child.”
The original complaint argued that the condition means Cox’s “pregnancy may not survive to birth, and if it does, her baby would be stillborn or survive for only minutes, hours, or days.”
The complaint also argued that Cox had been to three different emergency rooms within a month due to “severe cramping and unidentifiable fluid leaks.” The lawsuit alleges that her history of having two prior cesarean surgeries means continuing the pregnancy “puts her at high risk for severe complications threatening her life and future fertility, including uterine rupture and hysterectomy.”
The complaint further argued that it is Dr. Damla Karsan’s (Cox’s healthcare provider) “good faith belief and medical recommendation” that Cox’s circumstances “fall within the medical exception to Texas’s abortion bans and laws.” In Texas, abortion is outlawed except to save the life of the pregnant woman or prevent serious risk to her physical health, and a doctor can be prosecuted for performing the procedure. The lawsuit ultimately asked the court to block the state from enforcing its abortion laws to allow Karsan to abort Cox’s unborn baby.
The Texas Supreme Court blocked a temporary restraining order from Democrat Travis County District Judge Maya Fuerra Gamble after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the court to intervene. Paxton argued in his petition to the state’s high court that the lower court issued its order even though Cox failed to prove she satisfied the law’s medical-emergency exception.
“By applying language not found in Texas law, the trial court’s order represents an expansion of the statutory exceptions to Texas’s abortion prohibitions,” he argued. “Because the life of an unborn child is at stake, this Court should require a faithful application of Texas statutes prior to determining that an abortion is permitted.”
The Texas Supreme Court blocked the order “without regard to the merits” of the case.
Before the Texas Supreme Court blocked the lower court ruling, Paxton issued a statement saying that the temporary restraining order “will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws.”
Paxton also wrote a letter before the state Supreme Court’s order to the hospitals where the doctor involved in the case had admitting privileges. In the letter, he argued that Dr. Karsan has “failed to follow your hospital’s procedures for determining whether Ms. Cox qualifies for the medical exception to Texas’ abortion laws.”
If Cox does obtain an abortion outside of Texas, the case is likely to be moot, Southern Methodist University law professor Seema Mohapatra told the Austin American-Statesman.
“There is no longer a legal issue for the Texas courts to consider related to whether (Cox) can get an abortion in Texas,” Mohapatra said.
The case is Cox v. Texas, No. 23-994 in the Supreme Court of Texas.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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