The Texas Supreme Court temporarily stayed a lower court’s decision that allowed a 20-week pregnant woman to have an abortion to protect her health.
The Supreme Court said it will not rule until it has more time to study the case, the Center for Reproductive Rights reported this Friday.
Hours earlier, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, had asked the Supreme Court to stay the proceedings because Cox’s case did not qualify for the state’s medical exception for abortion.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office had previously opposed Cox’s request to terminate the pregnancy. The woman had to go to court arguing that although she and her husband desperately wanted to have the baby, her doctors warned her that it was not viable and posed a risk to the mother’s health and fertility.
The Republican lawyer also sent a letter to the three Houston hospitals where the woman’s doctor could perform the abortion, warning that he would sue any doctor or health center involved in the procedure.
Texas passed the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the United States, even before June 2022, when the “Roe v. Wade” decision, which constitutionally protected the termination of pregnancy in the United States, was overturned.
In September 2021, a law came into force in Texas that prohibits abortion if cardiac activity is detected in the fetus, something that occurs at six weeks of gestation, when many women do not even know they are pregnant.
Last week, the Texas Supreme Court brought up a similar case involving 20 women who sued the state, arguing that the laws are vague regarding medical exceptions related to pregnancies dangerous to a woman’s health.
Source: TSF
