#kate cox

[liberalsarecool]

The War on Women is a war on all women. Don't let the media cover one story and not another.

Amplify the voices of the unheard.

[mysharona1987]

[uboat53]

A woman with two children gets pregnant. She wants another child. Unfortunately, during pre-natal checks, it's discovered that this pregnancy has Trisomy 18, a rare condition which is nearly always fatal. Even in the rare cases where it is not fatal, it can cause severe pregnancy complications and the child that results will require full time care for however long they live.

This woman decided, in consultation with her doctors, that she would prefer not to go through a pregnancy whose overwhelmingly likely result is simply a dead fetus or infant and even whose ideal outcome would result in a substantially reduced ability to parent her other children. Moreover, she still wants another child and does not wish to risk the possible damage to her body and fertility that may come as a result. For this reason she chose to abort the pregnancy.

I think most of us, even a large number of those who consider themselves pro-life, can accept this result. It's not the ideal circumstance any of us would prefer, but the decision is reasonable given the situation.

Unfortunately, this woman lives in Texas and Texas has taken a hard line on its abortion ban, arguing that abortion can only be performed in case of immediate threat to the life of the mother. This position has been taken both by the Attorney General and the Supreme Court of the state, meaning that this is the way the law will be enforced.

Many people who celebrated the end of Roe v. Wade tried to say that this type of situation would never come to pass, that their abortion bans would always be enacted and enforced with an eye toward mercy and care for women. It's been about a year and a half since Dobbs and it's become increasingly clear that this is not the case.

Perhaps there are legal guardrails that should be put around the procedure of abortion, I'm certainly open to the possibility and discussion. But what I think is clear at this point is that the type of people who push for blanket bans on the procedure cannot be trusted to enforce them in any way that is consistent with how the majority of Americans view compassion, mercy, and care for women and families, not to mention medical science. Anyone who continues to argue otherwise is lying to try to get you to enact their extreme agenda.

[captainxtra]

Texas is ran by ghouls.

The day Texas turns blue will be one for the history books...

[odinsblog]

Life under Christofascist Republicans… so far

[cimerran-714]

"It's a good thing that Roe was overturned. It should be up to the states to decide."

No, it isn't. It should never be. The states cannot have a right to decide to kill people; overturning it was the first step. We would not wait until it is completely illegal except for, of course, life-threat situations.

[soundlessdragon]

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[filosofablogger]

A Brief Update

Earlier today I wrote about Kate Cox and her struggle to obtain an abortion despite the fact that the fetus she carries is not viable and her very life is in danger.  I wrote that late last night, and when I woke this morning, it was to this headline in the New York Times … Texas Supreme Court Temporarily Halts Court-Approved Abortion   The court, responding to an appeal from Attorney General Ken…

[rickmctumbleface]

[tomorrowusa]

A reminder that Republicans reserve the right to police reproductive systems.

A Texas woman who had sought a legal medical exemption for an abortion has left the state after the Texas Supreme Court paused a lower court decision that would allow her to have the procedure, lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights said Monday.  State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble last week had ruled that Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two from Dallas, could terminate her pregnancy. According to court documents, Cox's doctors told her her baby suffered from the chromosomal disorder trisomy 18, which usually results in either stillbirth or an early death of an infant.  As of the court filing last week, Cox was 20 weeks pregnant. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the lawsuit, Cox left the state because she "couldn't wait any longer" to get the procedure. "Her health is on the line," said Center for Reproductive Rights CEO Nancy Northup. "She's been in and out of the emergency room and she couldn't wait any longer." In response to Gamble's decision, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned a Texas medical center that it would face legal consequences if an abortion were performed.  In an unsigned order late Friday, the Texas Supreme Court then temporarily paused Gamble's ruling.  On Monday, after Cox left the state, the state Supreme Court lifted the pause, dismissing it as moot, and overturned the lower court ruling that had granted Cox's request. 

Fortunately Ms. Cox had the option of traveling to another state to have the procedure. A future US Supreme Court packed with MAGA judges could further restrict abortion nationally.

ALL of the current GOP candidates for president would choose anti-abortion judges for the US Supreme Court. And a GOP Senate would confirm them. Remind anybody considering voting for an impotent third-party candidate who has no chance of winning.

[liberalsarecool]

Republicans are 24/7 bad faith.

[mysharona1987]

[prettyvintageafternoon]

Not Kate Cox speaking at the DNC! I see you, Kate!

"I'm Kate Cox and I love being a mom," Cox said as she stood to help cast Texas' vote for Harris. "I have two beautiful children and my children and I have always wanted a third. But when I got pregnant, doctors told us our baby would never survive, and if I didn't get an abortion, it would put a future pregnancy at risk. But Trump didn't care, and because of his abortion bans, I had to flee my home."

"There is nothing pro-family about abortion bans. There is nothing pro-life about letting women suffer and even die. Today, because I found a way to access abortion care, I am pregnant again," she said, to cheers. "And my baby is due in January, just in time to see Kamala Harris sworn in as president of the United States."

CBS News Article

NPR Source Link

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eleanor Klibanoff at Texas Tribune:

The Texas Supreme Court has unanimously rejected the most significant challenge to Texas’ new abortion laws yet, ruling Friday that the medical exceptions in the law were broad enough to withstand constitutional challenge.

The case, Zurawski v. Texas, started with five women arguing the state’s near-total abortion laws stopped them from getting medical care for their complicated pregnancies. In the year plus it took to move through the court system, the case has grown to include 20 women and two doctors. In August, a Travis County judge issued a temporary injunction that allowed Texans with complicated pregnancies to get an abortion if their doctor made a “good faith judgment” that it was necessary. The Texas Office of the Attorney General appealed. The Texas Supreme Court overturned that ruling Friday, saying it “departed from the law as written without constitutional justification.” While the opinion was unanimous, Justice Brett Busby issued a concurring opinion that left the door open to a broader challenge to the law.

Zurawski v. Texas was a pioneering case in post-Roe America, the first challenge to a state’s abortion bans on behalf of women with complicated pregnancies. At least three other states have followed suit, and it led to a related case, in which Kate Cox, an actively pregnant woman in Dallas sued to be allowed to terminate her pregnancy. The Texas Supreme Court rejected Cox’s plea in December, which many saw as a likely foreshadow of how the court might rule in Zurawski v. Texas. On Friday, those suspicions were confirmed when the court offered a ruling very similar in nature to the Cox case. “A physician who tells a patient, ‘Your life is threatened by a complication that has arisen during your pregnancy, and you may die, or there is a serious risk you will suffer substantial physical impairment unless an abortion is performed,’ and in the same breath states ‘but the law won’t allow me to provide an abortion in these circumstances’ is simply wrong in that legal assessment,” the court wrote.

How the case unfolded

The initial lawsuit was filed in March 2023, and unlike previous wholesale, pre-enforcement challenges to abortion bans, this case focused on a very narrow argument — women with complicated pregnancies were being denied medically necessary abortions because doctors were unclear on how and when they could act.

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in summer 2022, Texas banned all abortions except to save the life of the pregnant patient. Almost immediately, women began to come forward with stories of difficult pregnancies worsened by doctors’ hesitations and uncertainty. Amanda Zurawski, the named plaintiff in the suit, was 18 weeks pregnant with a daughter they’d named Willow when she experienced preterm prelabor rupture of membranes. Despite the condition being fatal to the fetus and posing significant risks to the pregnant patient, her doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy because there was still fetal cardiac activity. Eventually, Zurawski went into sepsis and spent three days in the intensive care unit. While she survived, the infection has made it difficult for her and her husband to conceive again.

[...]

Friday’s ruling

In Friday’s ruling, the court ruled that only one of the 22 plaintiffs in the Zurawski suit had standing to sue — Karsan, the Houston OB/GYN who had agreed to perform Cox’s abortion. “We conclude that the Attorney General directly threatened enforcement against Dr. Karsan in response to her stated intent to engage in what she contends is constitutionally protected activity,” the justices wrote. “A state official’s letter threatening enforcement of a specific law against a plaintiff seeking relief from such enforcement is a sufficient showing of a threat of enforcement to establish standing to sue.” The trial court ruled in the injunction that a doctor should be allowed to perform an abortion when they deemed it necessary in their “good faith judgment.” Friday’s ruling found the trial judge overstepped, and said the way the law is written — allowing abortions based on a doctor’s “reasonable medical judgment” — is clear enough.

The all-GOP Texas Supreme Court hate women full stop, as the court rejected the Zurawski v. Texas lawsuit challenging the Lone Star State’s harsh abortion bans.

[odinsblog]

Call me crazy, but I hope someday women have more rights than guns do