©Reuters. Kate Cox, a 31-year-old woman from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, who asked a court for an order allowing her to have an abortion under the emergency medical exception to Texas’ near-total ban, and who the state will left to receive care while the condition is high
By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – Monday’s ruling by the Texas Supreme Court denying a woman’s request for an emergency abortion puts a spotlight on the medical exceptions in many U.S. states’ abortion bans. Here are some of the key facts about the case and what it could mean:
WHAT IS THE TEXAS MEDICAL EXCEPTION?
Texas has banned nearly all abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court last June overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which guaranteed abortion rights nationwide. The Texas ban includes an exception that allows the procedure if, in a doctor’s “reasonable medical judgment,” the mother has a “life-threatening condition” related to the pregnancy that puts her at risk of death or “substantial impairment” of an important bodily function’. .”
IF THERE IS AN EXCEPTION, WHY WAS THERE A JURISDICTION?
Since states began banning abortions last year, doctors and advocates have raised alarms that the medical exceptions are vague, making them difficult or even impossible to rely on in practice because it is unclear how close a pregnant woman is to death. must be a woman for the exception to apply. .
In their lawsuit against the state, Kate Cox and her doctor Damla Karsan sought permission to terminate Cox’s complicated, nonviable pregnancy. The lawsuit stated that although Karsan believed in good faith that Cox qualified for the exception, she was unwilling to perform the abortion without a court order because of the steep potential penalties under Texas law, including loss of her license and life in prison, as Cox was later deemed ineligible for the exception.
HOW DOES THE CASE REACH THE STATE’S HIGHEST COURT?
An Austin judge granted the injunction Cox and Karsan sought, but Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly asked the state Supreme Court to overrule it and threatened hospitals where Karsan had admitted privileges with prosecution anyway .
While the Supreme Court was hearing the case, Cox left the state to have the abortion.
WHAT HAS THE HIGH COURT DONE?
The court found that Cox had not demonstrated that she met the specific requirements of the medical exception, and rejected the idea that courts played a role in pre-approving who qualifies for the exception.
It wrote that a woman who meets the exception “does not have to seek a court order to obtain an abortion,” and that the law “leaves both to physicians — not judges — the discretion and responsibility to exercise their reasonable medical judgment to exercise.’
WHERE DOES THE STATEMENT LEAVE OTHER PATIENTS?
The ruling only has direct consequences for Cox. However, it provides clues as to how the court will rule on a separate lawsuit it is considering, brought by 22 patients and doctors, including Karsan, seeking a broader order interpreting the medical exception that could apply to all patients and doctors in Texas.
In that case, the court is asked to protect doctors from prosecution if they believe “in good faith” that an abortion is necessary to preserve the mother’s health.
The Supreme Court said in Cox’s case that “good faith” was not enough, and that doctors must instead act according to “reasonable medical judgment,” indicating how it is likely to decide the core issue in the larger case, in favor of the state. .
Essentially, the court is very unlikely to address Texas physicians’ concerns about providing abortion care under the medical exception, and patients who have the means will likely continue to leave the state for care.
What about other states?
All states with abortion bans have some form of medical exemption. Their language varies and the courts of each state are responsible for interpreting them. There are already signs that the exceptions will be the subject of future lawsuits.
Planned Parenthood asked a court last month for clarification on Indiana’s exception, and a trial in that case is scheduled for May. The state Supreme Court had previously ruled that the Constitution included a right to abortion to preserve the life or health of the mother.
In March, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in another lawsuit from Planned Parenthood, saying that the state constitution includes the right to an abortion to save the mother’s life, and that a doctor does not necessarily have to wait until she is directly is in danger, which goes further than the stated exception. in the state’s abortion ban.
