AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — A Texas couple sued the state of Texas on Tuesday seeking a court order to allow them to terminate a nonviable pregnancy.
“Kate Cox needs an abortion, and she needs it now,” Kate and Justin Cox and Kate's doctor Damla Karsan say in the complaint filed in Travis County District Court.
Kate Cox is a 31-year-old mother of two from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. After learning she was pregnant in August, complications such as severe cramps, began to worsen throughout the following months. On Nov. 28, Cox's baby was diagnosed with trisomy 18, a fetal abnormality that has no treatments and is often fatal before or shortly after birth.
Cox and her family decided that it would be best to end the pregnancy to ensure that her baby would not suffer upon being born as well as to protect her health and fertility.
“I do not want to put my body through the risks of continuing this pregnancy," Kate Cox said. “I do not want to continue until my baby dies in my belly or I have to deliver a stillborn baby or one where life will be measured in hours or days, full of medical tubes and machinery... I desperately want the chance to try for another baby and want to access the medical care now that gives me the best chance at another baby.”
However, doctors refused to perform the procedure, citing the state's abortion laws.
"As long as her baby had a heartbeat, she would not be able to obtain an abortion in Texas," the couple says in their complaint. "All they could do was continue to monitor the baby for cardiac activity."
In Texas, a physician who violates the ban faces up to 99 years in prison, revocation of their medical license and a $100,000 fine. Moreover, anyone who "aids or abets" a person in obtaining an abortion can be sued by private citizens who may be awarded a minimum of $10,000 if the suit succeeds.
Texas’ abortion bans have very few exceptions, but do allow abortion in the event of a “medical emergency.” Without a clear standard of what constitutes a medical emergency, physicians have opted to cease providing all abortions so as not to risk prosecution.
Karsan, an obstetrician who works at a private practice in Houston, would be the physician to perform the abortion if the court grants the plaintiffs' request.
Defendants include Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Medical Board executive director Stephen Brint Carlton. Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
The plaintiffs seek a temporary restraining order against the state Kate can get an abortion without fear that Karsan or her husband will be prosecuted. Additionally, they want help for others who face similar challenges — they want the court to find the state’s abortion bans violate the Texas Constitution by not allowing pregnant people with emergent medical conditions to preserve their health by obtaining an abortion.
On the same day Cox's baby was diagnosed with trisomy 18, their attorneys with the Center for Reproductive Rights were litigating a first-of-its-kind case before the Texas Supreme Court. The abortion rights group sued the state in March on behalf of five women who, like Cox, were unable to end nonviable and life-threatening pregnancies.
That case, Zurawski v. Texas, seeks to clarify that doctors may provide abortion to patients whose pregnancies pose a threat to the woman's life or potential harm to organs. A Travis County judge issued a temporary injunction in August, blocking the state from enforcing its bans against people who require emergency abortions and the physicians who provide them.
Texas appealed the injunction to the state's highest civil court. During oral arguments in the case on Nov. 28, the center urged the justices to allow the injunction to remain as the case continues. Attorneys for the state have argued that the medical exception is clear and blame for the experience of the plaintiffs at the feet of their doctors. The state has fought to have the claims dismissed for lack of standing and governmental immunity.
Pending the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling, a trial to consider the merits of the case in state court is set to begin March 25.
Since its initial filing, more women and physicians have signed on as plaintiffs in the Zurawski case, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 22. Due to the nature of Cox’s pregnancy, she decided to sue separately because, according to the complaint, "she] cannot wait for the Texas Supreme Court to issue its ruling.”
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