Texas Supreme Court stays court order allowing pregnant woman to have abortion

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday stayed a judge’s ruling that approved an abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis, raising questions about the legality and constitutionality of one of the most restrictive bans in the U.S. 

The order from the conservative Texan high court came 30 hours after Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two from Dallas, received a temporary restraining order from a lower court obstructing the Lone Star state from enforcing its ban against her. 

In a one-page court order, the Texan Supremes said they were temporarily staying Thursday’s lower court ruling “without regard to the merits.”

“While we still hope that the Court ultimately rejects the state’s request and does so quickly, in this case we fear that justice delayed will be justice denied,” Cox’s lawyer, Molly Duane.

Duane, who works for the Center for Reproductive Rights have refused to disclose their client’s medical plans, but confirmed to the court on Friday she was still pregnant.

The 31-year-old is reportedly 20 weeks pregnant. She is the first person known to file lawsuit since the Supreme Court issued its ruling last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which effectively overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Her decision to take legal action came in August after she learned that her unborn child was at high risk for trisomy 18, which has a very high likelihood of miscarriage or stillbirth and low survival rates.

“Furthermore, doctors have told Cox that if the baby’s heartbeat were to stop, inducing labor would carry a risk of a uterine rupture because of her two prior cesareans sections, and that another C-section at full term would endanger her ability to carry another child,” according to a Saturday report filed by the Associated Press.

State lawyers arguing on behalf of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Cox does not satisfy the criteria for a medical exception to the state’s abortion ban.

“Future criminal and civil proceedings cannot restore the life that is lost if Plaintiffs or their agents proceed to perform and procure an abortion in violation of Texas law,” the attorney general’s office told the state Supreme Court. 

Despite a lower court ruling from state District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, the Supreme Court admonished three hospitals in the Houston area they could not perform an abortion on Cox.

On Friday, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Kentucky woman who is eight weeks pregnant, but seeking to have an abortion, despite the state’s ban, according to CNN.

Her suit “seeks class-action status to include other Kentuckians who are or will become pregnant and want to have an abortion,” according to the AP.

Kentucky’s strict abortion law was passed in 2019 and went into effect when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last year. It made abortions at almost any stage a felony crime with limited exceptions such as preventing injury or saving a patient’s life.

There are no exceptions for rape or incest in either state, making Kentucky and Texas make both states two of the strictest jurisdictions in the nation.

The Texas order issued Thursday only applied to Cox and no other pregnant women in the Lone Star state.