Texas Court Overturns Order Allowing Woman's Abortion For Medical Emergency: Report

Kate Cox had moved a lower court for abortion after she came to know that her fetus was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition.

The Supreme Court in Texas has reversed a lower court's decision allowing a 20-week pregnant woman to undergo an abortion under medical exception for the state's near-total abortion ban. The decision came hours after the woman's lawyers said she had left the state to get an abortion, Reuters reported.

The court's ruling came on a petition filed by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who had threatened to prosecute any doctor carrying out the abortion.

Kate Cox, 31, sought abortion after she came to know that her fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage or stillbirth. Her lawyers argued that giving birth to the child would pose a risk to her health and future ability to have children.

Cox had sued Texas last week and initially won the right to an abortion after a judge in Travis County ruled in her favour.

The top court, composing of nine Republican judges, conveyed in an unsigned opinion that merely having a "good faith belief" from Damla Karsan, the doctor who was supposed to carry out the abortion and sued alongside Cox, that the procedure was medically necessary did not meet the criteria for the state's exception.

"A woman who meets the medical-necessity exception need not seek a court order to obtain an abortion," the court said. "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," the court further said, according to Reuters.

"This past week of legal limbo has been hellish for Kate," said Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the case on behalf of Cox, her husband and physician.

"Her health is on the line. She's been in and out of the emergency room and she couldn't wait any longer. This is why judges and politicians should not be making healthcare decisions for pregnant people -- they are not doctors."

"This ruling should enrage every Texan to their core," Molly Duane of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a lawyer for Cox, said in a statement, as per AFP. "If Kate can’t get an abortion in Texas, who can? Kate’s case is proof that exceptions don’t work, and it’s dangerous to be pregnant in any state with an abortion ban."

In 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion.

Texas imposed a ban into immediate effect, prohibiting abortions even in cases of rape or incest. Texas also has a law that allows private citizens to sue anyone who performs or aids an abortion.

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.

While the state does allow abortions in cases where the mother's life is in danger, physicians have said that in practice, the wording is vague and unclear, leaving them open to legal consequences for exercising their medical judgment.

Northup also said that Kate desperately wanted to be able to get care where she lives and recover at home surrounded by family. Although she had the ability to leave the state, most people do not, and "a situation like this could be a death sentence".

Similarly, on Friday, a Kentucky woman using the pseudonym Jane Doe, currently eight weeks pregnant, filed a lawsuit contesting her state's abortion ban.