Texas woman asks judge to allow abortion after lethal fetal diagnosis

A pregnant Texas woman whose fetus has a lethal diagnosis is suing the state seeking an emergency court order to allow her to get an abortion despite Texas’s strict ban. 

The lawsuit is believed to be the first of its kind since the state banned virtually all abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. 

Texas has overlapping abortion bans. The state outlaws all abortions from the point of fertilization and also enforces a “bounty” law that rewards private citizens who sue others who have helped a person get an abortion.  

There are exceptions to save the life of the mother, but the law is vague on what constitutes such a risk, and advocates are trying to force the state to clarify. 

The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, asks the court to temporarily halt Texas’s abortion bans as they apply to Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Dallas woman. Cox is currently 20 weeks pregnant, and her fetus has been diagnosed with full trisomy 18, a chromosomal anomaly that leads to miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of the infant within hours, days or weeks after birth.  

“If Kate is not allowed to have an abortion in Texas, she will be forced to continue the pregnancy until she either miscarries or gives birth to a stillborn or to a baby that could live only minutes. Her only other option is to try to flee the state,” the group said in a statement. 

Cox already has two young children, and she and her husband want to have more. Doctors told her the safest option to protect her health and future fertility was to get an abortion, but as long as there was fetal cardiac activity, she would not be able to obtain an abortion in Texas.  

If the heartbeat stopped, doctors could offer her a labor induction, but because of prior cesarean sections from her earlier pregnancies, induction carries a serious risk of uterine rupture, the lawsuit stated. 

The emergency appeal comes as the Texas Supreme Court is weighing a challenge by abortion rights advocates and women with dangerous and nonviable pregnancies who want the state to clarify the medical exemptions so doctors can perform abortions without fear of losing their licenses or being prosecuted.  

A district court judge previously ruled that the laws should not apply in cases where the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus won’t survive after birth, but the Texas Office of the Attorney General appealed that ruling, putting it on hold. The state Supreme Court could decide in the coming weeks. 

The lawsuit says Cox can’t wait for the court to rule. 

“Kate Cox needs an abortion, and she needs it now,” it argues. 

Unlike that Texas Supreme Court case, which advocates want to apply to all abortions, Cox’s attorneys are seeking a narrow injunction to allow the abortion and protect her doctor from prosecution and her husband from facing civil penalties under the state’s bounty law.  

“I’m trying to do what is best for my baby and myself, but the state of Texas is making us both suffer,” Cox said in a statement.