After a Travis County district decide cleared the way in which for Kate Cox, 31, to terminate her being pregnant, Ken Paxton petitioned the state’s highest court docket to halt the ruling.
This story was initially printed by The Texas Tribune.
Texas Legal professional Normal Ken Paxton has requested the state Supreme Courtroom to intervene and cease a Dallas girl from having an abortion.
Paxton’s workplace petitioned the excessive court docket simply earlier than midnight Thursday, after a Travis County district decide granted a short lived restraining order permitting Kate Cox, 31, to terminate her nonviable being pregnant. Paxton additionally despatched a letter to 3 hospitals, threatening authorized motion in the event that they allowed the abortion to be carried out at their facility.
On Friday night, the state Supreme Courtroom quickly halted the decrease court docket’s order however didn’t rule on the deserves of the case. The court docket stated it will rule on the non permanent restraining order, however didn’t specify when.
“Whereas we nonetheless hope that the Courtroom finally rejects the state’s request and does so shortly, on this case we concern that justice delayed can be justice denied,” stated Cox’s lawyer, Molly Duane, in a Friday night assertion.
That is the primary time an actively pregnant grownup girl has gone to court docket to get an abortion since earlier than Roe v. Wade was determined in 1973. An analogous case was filed in Kentucky on Friday.
Within the petition, Paxton requested the Texas Supreme Courtroom to rule shortly, saying that “every hour [the temporary restraining order] stays in place is an hour that Plaintiffs consider themselves free to carry out and procure an elective abortion.”
“Nothing can restore the unborn little one’s life that can be misplaced consequently,” the submitting stated. “Publish hoc enforcement isn’t any substitute, so time is of the essence.”
The Texas Supreme Courtroom is at the moment additionally contemplating the same case, Zurawski v. Texas, through which 20 girls declare they had been denied medically mandatory abortions for his or her sophisticated pregnancies because of the state’s new legal guidelines. The state has argued these girls wouldn’t have standing to sue as a result of, not like Cox, they don’t seem to be at the moment searching for abortions.
Within the preliminary lawsuit, Cox’s attorneys with the Heart for Reproductive Rights argued she can’t wait the weeks or months it’d take the Texas Supreme Courtroom to rule.
Now, the excessive court docket should take into account most of the similar arguments as these in Zurawski v. Texas, however on a a lot tighter timeline.
The central query is whether or not a deadly fetal anomaly qualifies a pregnant affected person for an abortion underneath the slim medical exception to the state’s near-total abortion ban. Cox’s legal professionals argue that persevering with this nonviable being pregnant poses a menace to her life and future fertility, thus necessitating an abortion.
Travis County District Choose Maya Guerra Gamble agreed, saying it will be a “miscarriage of justice” to drive Cox to proceed the being pregnant. The state disagreed, telling the Supreme Courtroom that Guerra Gamble’s ruling “opens the floodgates to pregnant moms procuring an abortion” past the scope of the medical exception.
Individually, Duane despatched a letter to Guerra Gamble, asking her to carry Paxton in for a listening to on his letter threatening authorized motion in opposition to hospitals that enable Cox to have an abortion.
“The repeated misrepresentations of the Courtroom’s [order], coupled with express threats of legal and civil enforcement and penalties, serve solely to cow the hospitals from offering Ms. Cox with the healthcare that she desperately wants,” Duane wrote. “Plaintiffs respectfully request the Courtroom maintain a listening to so Defendant Paxton can clarify to Your Honor why he shouldn’t be sanctioned.”
Texas Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, on behalf of President Joe Biden’s re-election marketing campaign, condemned Paxton’s feedback Friday.
“A Texas girl was simply compelled to beg for life-saving healthcare in court docket and now any physician who offers her the care she urgently wants is being threatened with punishment together with a lifetime jail sentence,” Escobar stated in an announcement. “This story is stunning, it’s horrifying, and it’s heartbreaking.”
William Melhado contributed to this story.
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