By Marin Wolf
A pregnant North Texas woman is suing the state over access to an abortion after her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition.
It’s the first lawsuit filed by a pregnant person seeking an abortion since the state banned the procedure in nearly all cases after federal abortion protections were overturned.
Kate Cox, 31, visited three different emergency rooms in the last month for severe cramping and unidentifiable fluid leaks in her third pregnancy. After testing, doctors diagnosed her baby with full trisomy 18, also known as Edwards syndrome, meaning the baby is unlikely to survive long after birth if it is not stillborn.
Because Cox, now 20 weeks pregnant, has had two prior cesarean sections, continuing the pregnancy puts her at risk for severe complications that could threaten her life or fertility, according to the complaint filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights on Tuesday.
“I do not want to continue the pain and suffering that has plagued this pregnancy. I do not want to put my body through the risks of continuing this pregnancy. I do not want my baby to arrive in this world only to watch her suffer,” Cox said in a statement. “I need to end my pregnancy now so that I have the best chance for my health and my future pregnancy.”
Under Texas’ abortion bans, pregnant people are only able to obtain an abortion if they have a “life-threatening physical condition” or are at risk of “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” It’s a definition at the heart of another lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights that includes 20 women who say their abortions were delayed or denied because the exemptions are unclear.
The complaint requests the court issue a temporary restraining order allowing obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Damla Karsan to perform Cox’s abortion. Karsan is also a plaintiff in the other abortion case on behalf of herself as a doctor and on behalf of her patients.
Cox’s lawyers requested that the case be decided “expeditiously” given the time-sensitive nature of Cox’s situation.
“Kate Cox needs an abortion, and she needs it now,” said the complaint, filed in Travis County District Court.
The Office of the Attorney General did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One week ago, the Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the larger abortion lawsuit over a temporary injunction that would exempt any Texan with a medically complicated pregnancy from the state’s bans, including those with fatal fetal diagnoses.
A Travis County judge previously ruled in favor of the injunction, but the Office of the Attorney General appealed the decision to Texas’ highest court.
During the arguments at the state Supreme Court, Beth Klusmann, prosecutor for the state, said that adding an additional exemption for fatal fetal anomalies is an issue for the Legislature, not the courts, because the law does not currently include any language on the matter.
The state also argued that the plaintiffs in the case don’t have standing to seek clarity on Texas’ abortion bans because any decision would help them only in hypothetical scenarios, like if they were to get pregnant again in the future.
“Then the court would be saying that a patient needs to have blood or amniotic fluid dripping down their leg before they can come to court,” said Center for Reproductive Rights attorney Molly Duane. “And quite obviously, patients in those situations are much more concerned with getting proper medical care and saving their lives, their fertility and their families than they are with finding a lawyer and coming to court.”
It could be months before the state Supreme Court issues a ruling in the case. Unless the court dismisses the lawsuit, it will return to a lower court for litigation.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
