Kate Cox is 20 weeks pregnant with a fetus that has a fatal genetic condition. Giving birth could endanger her health as well, possibly rendering her unable to have children in the future.
In any place with a reasonable legal standard, Cox would be able to have an immediate abortion. But, unfortunately, she lives in the state of Texas, which is not such a place. In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, abortion has become effectively illegal in Texas.
(Roughly half of the U.S. states now restrict abortions to a significant degree.)
Hoping to get relief, Cox sued the state, and a judge ruled that she indeed qualified for an emergency exemption from the ban.
But then the state’s grandstanding attorney general, Ken Paxton, petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to block her abortion, and threatened to aggressively prosecute any doctor who performed it.
(Paxton, you may recall, narrowly escaped being removed from office earlier this year on charges of extreme corruption.)
So far, the Texas Supreme Court has issued a temporary block on the lower court’s decision, preventing Cox from going ahead with the procedure.
All she can do now is hope that the Court will reverse itself and allow her to proceed.
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