Kate Cox, a 31-year-old from near Dallas facing pregnancy complications has left Texas to seek an abortion after the state Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling allowing her to obtain the procedure.
“This past week of legal limbo has been hellish for Kate,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, wrote in a statement. “Her health is on the line. She’s been in and out of the emergency room and she couldn’t wait any longer.”
The Texas state Supreme Court ruled late Monday—agreeing with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R)—that Cox’s condition did not meet the state’s “medical emergency” exception for obtaining an abortion, though Cox had already left the state to obtain the procedure elsewhere.
District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin had handed down a restraining order on Thursday that would have shielded Cox and her doctors from prosecution.
Cox, who is 21 weeks pregnant, had learned that her fetus suffered lethal abnormality that is almost always fatal at birth.
The Center for Reproductive Rights told reporters that Cox was not entertaining any interviews at this time, nor did it disclose details of her plans, though it noted that she had received “offers to help her access abortion elsewhere, from Kansas to Colorado to Canada.”
Texas is one of at least 16 states that ban abortion after six weeks, following a June 2022 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v Wade.
PHOTO: Pro-Choice flag of Texas at U.S. Supreme Court, 2016
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