Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday threatened to prosecute any doctors involved in providing an emergency abortion to a woman, hours after she won a court order allowing her to obtain one for medical necessity.
Paxton said in a letter that the order by District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin did not shield doctors from prosecution under all of Texas’s abortion laws, and that the woman, Kate Cox, had not shown she qualified for the medical exception to the state’s abortion ban.
Paxton said in a statement accompanying the letter that Guerra Gamble’s order “will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws.”
The letter was sent to three hospitals where Damla Karsan, the doctor who said she would provide the abortion to Cox, has admitting privileges.
“Fearmongering has been Ken Paxton’s main tactic in enforcing these abortion bans,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Cox, said in a statement. “He is trying to bulldoze the legal system to make sure Kate and pregnant women like her continue to suffer.”
Attorney Molly Duane says her group Center for Reproductive Rights is figuring out the fastest way to get Kate Cox her abortion care.
‘It’s a hard time’
Cox, 31, of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order preventing Texas from enforcing its near-total ban on abortion in her case, saying her continued pregnancy threatened her health and future fertility.
“I do not want to continue the pain and suffering that has plagued this pregnancy or continue to put my body or my mental health through the risks of continuing this pregnancy,” Cox wrote in an editorial published in The Dallas Morning News. “I do not want my baby to arrive in this world only to watch her suffer.”
Guerra Gamble said she was granting the order at a hearing Thursday morning.
Cox’s lawyers have said her lawsuit is the first such case since the U.S. Supreme Court last year allowed states to ban abortion.
Cox’s fetus was diagnosed on Nov. 27 with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or death soon after birth.
Cox, who is about 20 weeks pregnant, said in her lawsuit that she would need to undergo her third caesarian section if she continues the pregnancy. That could jeopardize her ability to have more children, which she said she and her husband wanted.
“It’s a hard time. Even with being hopeful from the decision that came at the hearing this morning, we’re going through the loss of a child,” she told CNN on Thursday. “There’s no outcome here [where] I take home my healthy baby girl.”
Doctors wanted protection through the courts
The judge’s ruling applies only to Cox, and does not expand abortion access more broadly.
“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,” said Guerra Gamble in Austin, Texas, state court at Thursday’s hearing.
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Amanda Zurawski was told around 18 weeks into her pregnancy that it would result in the loss of her daughter, Willow. She says it took a near-death experience before doctors could operate. Now she is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the state of Texas over its abortion access laws. Guest host Catherine Cullen speaks with Zurawski, as well as the legislative director of Texas Right to Life and a maternal fetal medicine physician.
Cox’s lawyer, Molly Duane of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told reporters on a call after the hearing that Guerra Gamble’s order allowed Cox to obtain the abortion. She declined to provide any details about Cox’s immediate plans, citing concerns for her and her doctors’ safety.
“I want to emphasize how unforgivable it is that Kate had to beg for health care in court,” Duane said. “No one should have to do this, and the reality is 99 per cent of people cannot.”
The state’s abortion ban includes only a narrow exception to save the mother’s life or prevent substantial impairment of a major bodily function. Cox said in her lawsuit that although her doctors believed abortion was medically necessary for her, they were unwilling to perform one without a court order in the face of potential penalties, including life in prison and loss of their licences.
Johnathan Stone, a lawyer for the state, had said at Thursday’s hearing that Cox had not shown she qualified for the exception. He said showing that would require a more through hearing on evidence, rather than a temporary restraining order.
The Democrats won big in off-year U.S. elections where the national debate on abortion was front and centre. A researcher who studies American attitudes toward abortion says this is again another sign the U.S. is a pro-choice country.
Cox’s husband, Justin Cox, and Dr. Karsan are also plaintiffs in the case.
Karsan is also one of 22 plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit seeking a broader order protecting Texas women’s right to abortions their doctors deem medically necessary, in which the state’s highest court heard arguments last week. The court has not ruled in that case.