Texas Supreme Court Halts Judge’s Abortion Approval

The Texas Supreme Court temporarily halted a lower court ruling permitting an emergency abortion for a woman facing health and fertility complications, capping a whirlwind week in a contentious legal fight to the state’s near total abortion ban.

In an order that came down late Friday, the high court said it blocked the ruling as it considers the a Democratic judge’s decision to authorize an abortion for Dallas-area mother Kate Cox.

The stay in the case marks the latest development in a bitter fight that escalated to the high court within days of Cox filing the lawsuit this week. Cox, a mother of two, requested approval to terminate her pregnancy after 20 weeks as an exception to the state’s abortion ban. She argued her fetus had a lethal condition and that by continuing the pregnancy her doctors feared she’d suffer irreparable damage to her health and future fertility.

Texas’ abortion ban has an exception to protect the life of the mother. However, the state hasn’t clarified how sick the woman must be to terminate a pregnancy, leaving that decision to a doctor and the courts to make.

A Democratic judge in Travis County sided with Cox on Thursday, issuing a temporary restraining order against the abortion ban. The order authorized Cox’s doctor to perform an abortion. Cox’s lawyers declined to say if the procedure had taken place.

Within hours, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. His lawyers argued that if the high court didn’t issue a stay, “nothing can restore the unborn child’s life that will be lost as a result.”

Paxton also issued a letter threatening to prosecute any doctor who gave Cox an abortion.

As it considers this case, the Supreme Court is also weighing a broader challenge to the state’s abortion ban.

More than 20 women and two doctors sued the state earlier this year, arguing that they suffered physical harm but were denied proper medical care under the state’s abortion ban. A Democratic trial court judge sided with the women in July, saying that a decision on whether to perform an abortion under the medical exception should be up to a doctor’s “good faith judgment.”

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in that case, Zurawski v. Texas.

The case is In re State of Texas, Tex. No. 23-0994, 12/8/23