Texas judge allows woman to have emergency abortion, in historic ruling

A Texas judge on Thursday ruled that a pregnant woman can obtain an emergency abortion despite the state’s near-total abortion ban that went into effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned last June, marking the first such intervention in the state since the federal law went into effect 50 years ago.

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed the case earlier this week on behalf of Kate Cox of Dallas, her husband and her OB-GYN. Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant and whose unborn baby has trisomy 18, a lethal genetic condition linked to abnormalities in the body and low birth weights, sought the abortion because her doctors have advised her that there is “virtually no chance” her baby will survive and that continuing the pregnancy poses grave risks to her health and fertility, according to the complaint.

The Dallas-area mother of two, who hopes to have another child, in the past month has been admitted to emergency rooms four times, including one visit since filing the case, after experiencing severe cramping and fluid leaks. Her doctors have advised her that carrying the pregnancy to term would make it less likely that she will be able to carry another child in the future, according to the complaint.

“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,” Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble said as she delivered her ruling.

The ruling sets a historic precedent as the first case to grant relief to such a request in decades. The ruling comes as the Texas Supreme Court weighs Zurawski v. Texas, a suit brought by 20 Texas women who were denied abortions, many of them in similar situations to Cox’s. The case alleges that vague language and “non-medical terminology” in state law leaves doctors unable or unwilling to administer abortion care, forcing patients to seek treatment out of state or wait until their lives are in danger.

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Texas law allows abortion only in cases where “a life-threatening physical condition places the woman in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

“Today’s decision underscores what we already know — abortion is essential health care,” Cox’s lawyer, Molly Duane, said in a statement after the hearing. “While we are grateful that Kate will be able to get this urgent medical care, it is unforgivable that she was forced to go to court to ask for it in the middle of a medical emergency.”