The Texas Supreme Court on Friday evening temporarily stayed a lower court order allowing a Dallas woman to have an abortion despite the state’s strict bans, after learning that her fetus suffered from a deadly disease.
The state court’s decision followed an appeal from Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, who opposed the woman’s abortion.
The Supreme Court said that, “without regard to the merits” of the arguments of both parties, it had issued an administrative stay of the case, in order to give itself more time to issue a final decision.
The stay meant that, for the time being, a Travis County District Court judge’s order allowing the abortion was stayed. That order allowed the woman, Kate Cox, to obtain an abortion and protected her doctor from civil or criminal liability under Texas’ overlapping abortion bans.
“We are concerned that justice delayed is justice denied,” said Molly Duane, a senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Ms. Cox.
The Texas Supreme Court’s action is the latest twist in an unusual saga unfolding around the state’s abortion bans, which are among the nation’s strictest, over what is allowed and what is not under their medical exceptions.
In his appeal, Mr. Paxton urged the court to act and wrote that if abortion were permitted, “nothing can restore to the unborn child the life which will thus be lost.”
While Texas’ bans allow exceptions to protect a pregnant woman’s health and life, doctors said the vague legal language creates fear of lawsuits and a reluctance to perform abortions.
Mr. Paxton’s filings came hours after a district court judge issued a temporary restraining order barring Mr. Paxton and others from enforcing the state’s abortion bans. State against Ms. Cox’s doctor, Damla Karsan, or anyone who helped her abort Ms. Barreur.
In granting the order, the judge, a Democrat, found that Ms. Cox, 31, a mother of two young children living in the Dallas area, met the criteria for an exception to the state’s abortion bans. . Her fetus was diagnosed with Down syndrome, a disease that is fatal in all but a small number of rare cases; Ms. Cox, 20 weeks pregnant, visited the emergency room several times due to pain and discharge during her pregnancy.
On Friday, attorneys for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which also represents Dr. Karsan, filed a response to Mr. Paxton with the state’s highest court.
“The State’s request for mandamus is stunning in its disregard for Ms. Cox’s life, fertility, and the rule of law,” Ms. Cox’s attorneys wrote. “Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court dismiss the writ and order the Attorney General to comply with the binding orders of a Texas court.”
A ruling would only apply to Ms Cox and her current pregnancy.
Separately, the Texas Supreme Court also considered a broader lawsuit filed by women and doctors, including Dr. Karsan, and supported by the Center for Reproductive Rights. This trial, Zurawski v. State of Texas, seeks to clarify the medical exemption that would apply statewide. The arguments in this case took place last month.
After the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year made the issue of abortion a political issue for Republicans in many states.
But Mr. Paxton, a Republican re-elected last year, relied on strong support from social and religious conservatives, who helped him return to power for a third term and survive an impeachment trial led by the Republicans against him.
“The political wind is at his back right now,” Matt Mackowiak, head of the Travis County Republican Party, said Friday.
Mr. Paxton has gained national prominence among far-right conservative activists and voters for his willingness to use legal actions, as well as official opinions and letters, to advocate for their causes – including supporting efforts to to overturn the 2020 presidential election and declaring that some medical care provided to transgender youth constitutes “child abuse.”
His appeal to the Texas Supreme Court in Ms. Cox’s case followed his letter to three Houston hospitals in which he said that Dr. Karsan was authorized to admit patients and could perform abortions, warning them that the The judge’s order would not protect them from possible lawsuits or civil proceedings.
Dr. Karsan’s lawyers said in legal papers that she believed her patient’s abortion was medically necessary to preserve her health and future fertility.
But in his letter, Mr. Paxton warned that the order would not prevent state officials or private citizens from filing criminal or civil lawsuits against the hospital or against others, such as the husband from Ms. Cox, who could help her have an abortion.
He reiterated this position in his filings with the Texas Supreme Court.
“Nothing will prevent the enforcement of Texas civil and criminal penalties once the TRO erroneously prohibiting enforcement is rescinded,” his office documents state.
Two of the hospitals Mr. Paxton targeted in his letter did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for a third hospital confirmed that Dr. Karsan had admitting privileges, but said the hospital was “not involved in this matter.”
Mr. Paxton’s letter and subsequent legal documents appear to have plunged Ms. Cox, her doctor and others involved in her care back into the same state of uncertainty and fear of prosecution that prompted the initial lawsuit.
The letter puts Dr. Karsan “in a terrible position,” said Judy Levison, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Houston who has known Dr. Karsan for years. “They named her and so it’s intimidating,” she added. “It’s about intimidating someone into not taking action.”
In Texas, the attorney general does not have the ability to bring criminal charges directly under abortion bans and must instead rely on local prosecutors to do so.
No doctor or provider has been prosecuted for performing an abortion in Texas, and only a very small number of civil lawsuits have been filed under a 2021 state law, Senate Bill 8, which authorized prosecution of those who assist in abortion.
In a few cases, doctors performed abortions after determining they were necessary and permitted by law.
“There are similar hospitals in Texas where abortions were performed, and the hospitals supported their doctors, but it was not made public,” Dr. Levison said.
In the first nine months of the year, Texas recorded 34 abortion procedures statewide, according to state health statistics. In 2020, before the state’s first severe restrictions took effect, there were more than 50,000.