Supreme Court of TX
@SupremeCourt_TX

The Supreme Court of Texas issued an opinion this evening in 23-0994, a petition for writ of mandamus regarding Ms. Kate Cox.
Find the opinion of the court here: https://txcourts.gov/media/1457645/230994pc.pdf

Orders here: https://txcourts.gov/supreme/orders-opinions/2023/december/december-11-2023/

A woman who had asked a court for an order allowing her to get an abortion under the medical emergency exception to Texas' near-total ban will leave the state to receive care while the state's highest court considers her case, her lawyers said in a court filing on Monday.

Lawyers for Kate Cox said in a filing with the Texas Supreme Court that she nonetheless wished to continue her lawsuit. A lower court last week issued a restraining order allowing her to obtain an abortion, but the state Supreme Court put it on hold while it considers an appeal by Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican.

"Kate's case has shown the world that abortion bans are dangerous for pregnant people, and exceptions don't work," Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Cox, said in a statement.

Paxton's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cox's fetus was diagnosed on Nov. 27 with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or death soon after birth.

North Carolina’s state legislature has been controlled by Republicans for more than a decade, but when Tricia Cotham, a Democratic state representative, switched party allegiances to join the GOP last Spring, the Republican majority in the statehouse increased by one more seat to 72-48, an exact three-fifths majority.

While this addition may seem marginal, it gave state Republicans a tremendous new superpower: the ability to override a governor’s veto. It was a power they didn’t hesitate to use. Within weeks, Republican lawmakers put in place the 12-week abortion ban Democratic governor Roy Cooper had tried to veto, further curtailing abortion access from the previous limitation of 20 weeks.

The fact that a single state representative can upend policy for an entire state is not new, nor is it restricted to abortion or North Carolina. A GOP-led attempt in the New Hampshire legislature to amend a “parent rights” proposal to include a requirement that teachers ask parents permission before abiding by a student’s selection of pronouns was defeated by a slim 190-194 margin before the statehouse voted 193-192 in favor of tabling the whole bill, for now.

These outcomes are striking reminders of the stakes at play in upcoming state legislature elections in today’s hyper-polarized political climate.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court on Friday night put on hold a judge's ruling that approved an abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis, throwing into limbo an unprecedented challenge to one of the most restrictive bans in the U.S.

The order by the all-Republican court came more than 30 hours after Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two from the Dallas area, received a temporary restraining order from a lower court judge that prevents Texas from enforcing the state's ban in her case.

In a one-page order, the court said it was temporarily staying Thursday's ruling “without regard to the merits." The case is still pending.

“While we still hope that the Court ultimately rejects the state’s request and does so quickly, in this case we fear that justice delayed will be justice denied,” said Molly Duane, an attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Cox.

Cox's attorneys have said they will not share her abortion plans, citing concerns for her safety. In a filing with the Texas Supreme Court on Friday, her attorneys indicated she was still pregnant.

Cox was 20 weeks pregnant this week when she filed what is believed to be the first lawsuit of its kind since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that overturned Roe v. Wade. The order issued Thursday only applied to Cox and no other pregnant Texas women.

Some Missouri lawmakers are renewing a call for the state to take an anti-abortion step that goes further than prominent anti-abortion groups want to go and that has not gained much traction in any state so far: a law that would allow homicide charges against women who obtain abortions.

Republicans in both the state House and Senate have introduced bills to be considered in the legislative session that begins next month to apply homicide laws on behalf of a victim who is an “unborn child at every stage of development.”

The bills would offer exceptions if the suspect is a woman who aborts a pregnancy after being coerced or threatened, or an abortion is provided by a physician to save the life of the pregnant woman.

“To me, it’s just about protecting a baby’s life like we do every other person’s life,” state Rep. Bob Titus, a first-term Republican who is sponsoring one of the measures, told The Associated Press. “The prosecution is just a consequence of taking an innocent human life.”

Titus said no charges would need to be brought under the bill, so long as people abide by the law already on the books that makes Missouri one of 14 states with bans in effect on abortions at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions.

Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, states required minors seeking abortion without the involvement of their parents to seek a court order. Today, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Woman’s Health Organization, an adult woman had to do the same thing, even when her life and fertility were at risk. While a judge ruled in her favor on Thursday, issuing a temporary restraining order granting her doctor the right to perform the procedure without facing penalties, the state of Texas is still determined to stop her.

Kate Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant with her third child, learned that her child had full trisomy 18, a genetic condition that is almost always fatal in utero or the first year after birth. Physicians warned her that continuing the pregnancy put her at high risk of developing gestational diabetes and hypertension—and that a third Cesarean section might also deprive Cox of the ability to have another child. Her physician nevertheless turned away her request for an abortion, concerned about “the loss of her medical license, life in prison, and massive civil fines.”

That Cox was the one asking for a court order permitting her to have an abortion is remarkable. Before Roe, plaintiffs like Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, went to court to challenge the constitutionality of abortion laws, but often used pseudonyms. Moreover, they questioned the validity of criminal abortion laws rather than seeking a court-ordered abortion (McCorvey famously did not have an abortion and carried the “Roe baby” to term). After 1973, it was abortion providers who often brought suit on their patients’ behalf. Only minors asked permission to end specific pregnancies—and only under laws that applied to children acting without parental consent.

This state of affairs reflected the terms of the post-Roe debate. On the one hand, the law treated adult pregnant patients as competent decisionmakers, entitled to some degree of liberty and equality, and did not require them to explain themselves to a judge. On the other hand, few abortion seekers wanted to be in the spotlight challenging abortion laws themselves. Anti-abortion groups picketed clinics and spread images of life in the womb on placards, films, and political ads. The more stigmatized abortion became, the more it made sense for providers to be the ones questioning the constitutionality of abortion bans, and fewer public abortion seekers came forward as litigants themselves.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked the state Supreme Court to intervene and stop a Dallas woman from having an abortion.

Paxton’s office petitioned the high court just before midnight Thursday, after a Travis County district judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing Kate Cox, 31, to terminate her nonviable pregnancy. Paxton also sent a letter to three hospitals, threatening legal action if they allowed the abortion to be performed at their facility.

This is the first time an actively pregnant woman has gone to court to get an abortion since before Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. A similar case was filed in Kentucky on Friday.

In the petition, Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court to rule quickly, saying that “each hour [the temporary restraining order] remains in place is an hour that Plaintiffs believe themselves free to perform and procure an elective abortion.”

“Nothing can restore the unborn child’s life that will be lost as a result,” the filing said. “Post hoc enforcement is no substitute, so time is of the essence.”

Conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal judges could not entertain complaints of partisan gerrymandering. In its landmark 5-4 decision Rucho v. Common Cause, the court said that it’s not for federal courts to decide whether an election map is designed to give one party an illegal advantage. But Chief Justice John Roberts assured plaintiffs that his decision does not leave them powerless to stop partisan gerrymandering since they still have a path for litigation: state courts.

The Rucho decision did not “condemn complaints about districting to echo into a void,” Roberts wrote, since states “are actively addressing the issue on a number of fronts.”

New Hampshire last week became the latest state to show the promise was largely illusory.

Its state supreme court ruled that it couldn’t decide whether the state’s election maps are illegal partisan gerrymanders because that’s not something that state judges should be deciding either. The 3-2 decision—with the three judges appointed by Republican Governor Chris Sununu in the majority—left in place the GOP gerrymanders signed into law by Sununu. This likely locks the party’s structural advantages in New Hampshire’s Senate and executive council through the 2030s.

And it condemns complaints of partisan gerrymandering claims to echo into a void after all, with nowhere to turn in either federal court or New Hampshire court.

Caroline Kitchener
@CAKitchener

Breaking: Three days after Kate Cox in TX asked a judge to allow her to get an abortion, a second woman in KY is asking the same. Two test cases for what could become a widely utilized strategy to access abortion care in post-Roe America.

Filing here👇

aclu.org
Complaint, Jane Doe v. Daniel Cameron - American Civil Liberties Union

Steve Vladeck
@steve_vladeck

Those defending ambiguous medical exceptions in abortion bans regularly suggest that the problem is not the ambiguities, but doctors narrowly construing them.

And yet, here’s Texas AG Ken Paxton threatening doctors with civil and criminal liability for FOLLOWING A COURT ORDER.

It’s almost like doctors are genuinely—and reasonably—worried about civil and criminal liability for good faith exercises of their best medical judgment that might end up falling on the wrong side of the ambiguous lines that these state abortion bans draw…

Texas Attorney General
@TXAG

Attorney General Ken Paxton Responds to Travis County TRO: