The Supreme Court of the state of Texas this Friday temporarily suspended the ruling of a lower court that allowed the abortion of Kate Cox (31 years old), a Dallas woman who was 20 weeks pregnant, to protect her health.
The Supreme Court has declared that it will not rule until it has more time to study the case, according to The Center for Reproductive Rights.
Hours earlier, the Attorney General of Texas, Republican Ken Paxton, had asked the Supreme Court to interrupt the process because Cox’s case did not qualify for the medical exception contemplated in that state to be able to undergo an abortion.
“Every hour that (the ruling) remains in force is an hour in which the plaintiffs believe themselves free to perform and seek an elective abortion,” the conservative prosecutor had argued in the writing cited by The Texas Tribune newspaper.
In fact, the Texas Attorney General’s Office had already opposed Cox’s request to terminate her pregnancy. The woman had to go to court arguing that, although she and her husband desperately wanted to have the baby, her doctors warned her that it was not viable and posed a risk to the mother’s health and fertility. .
On the other hand, the Republican prosecutor also sent a letter to the three Houston hospitals where Cox’s doctor, Damla Karsan, could perform the abortion, warning that he would prosecute any doctor or health institution involved in the procedure.
Texas has approved the most restrictive laws against abortion in the United States, even before the ‘Roe v. Wade’ ruling was abolished in June 2022, which constitutionally protected the terminations of pregnancies in the North American country.
In September 2021, the “Heartbeat Law” came into effect in Texas, prohibiting abortion if cardiac activity is detected in the fetus, something that happens at six weeks of gestation, when many women do not even know they are pregnant .
Last week, the Texas Supreme Court heard a similar case involving twenty women who sued the state alleging that the laws are vague when it comes to medical exceptions related to pregnancies that are dangerous to the health of the woman. pregnant