December 11, 2023

"Texas woman who sued state for abortion travels out of state for procedure instead."

NPR reports.

UPDATE: "Texas Supreme Court Rules Against Woman Who Sought Court-Approved Abortion/Hours before the ruling, a group representing the woman, whose fetus received a fatal diagnosis, said she was leaving Texas for an abortion" (NYT).
Texas’ overlapping bans allow for abortions only when a pregnancy seriously threatens the health or life of the woman.

“These laws reflect the policy choice that the Legislature has made, and the courts must respect that choice,” the court wrote.

38 comments:

Joe Smith said...

So different states can have different standards?

Who knew?

n.n said...

So, there isn't a medically viable cause to abort her child.

NKP said...

The Texas law is legit.

The provision for exception is legit.

The initial ruling was legit.

Ken Paxton was stupid for appealing. Probably damaged his own position on the matter.

Dave Begley said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gunner said...

Every time some dumbass Texan official does something like this, it turns 10000 Midwestern women into pro-abortion fanatics.

Jamie said...

Ok. This seems to be one of those edge cases where good or bad law can be made, and which way it would have come down, if the case had continued, is beyond my pay grade.

Trisomy 18 is 50-50 that the baby will be born alive, and 90-95% fatal within the first year. The longest-lived sufferer is like 40 but that's vanishingly rare. This is a terrible situation in which a woman who absolutely wanted this baby and has had two other children by C-section and wants a third faces the risks associated with another C-section that could render her unable to have a third child (like any multiple-C woman, I gather).

Her stated "high risk" of gestational diabetes, I tend to discount, because the high risk isn't quantified or explained (maybe HIPAA?); it feels like a pretext for the court case, but how can I know?

Basically she wants 3 kids and doesn't want this handicapped child, even if he or she only lives a short time.

I think my husband and I would have decided differently with our second and third. I was a "geriatric mother" or whatever they call it when you're 35 or older, and was given the option of amniocentesis to determine whether our babies had Downs or other developmental syndromes, and we decided that knowing the answer ahead of time wouldn't change whether we continued with my pregnancies, so I didn't have the testing done. We were ignorant of what life would be like with a disabled child, but we decided to go forward in the dark anyway. So. We might have rolled the dice that we might only have the one or two children we already had, or that we might face the tragedy of having and loving a child who would die very young, or even at or before birth.

But how can I judge her? I don't know her situation - her social support, her family, her emotional stability, her finances, any of that.

It's hard for me to say, as a strongly but not absolutely pro-life person, but I guess I'm glad she was able to leave the state...?

I reluctantly support a 12-15-week law. And I know this woman would have been caught in such a net. So I guess maybe it's not altogether awful that Massachusetts and California exist...? Though I've also known people who have had disabled children whom they cannot imagine their lives without.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I first read that as "Trans woman who sued state for abortion..."

JK Brown said...

Just politics. Never was anything else as this was always option 1.

Mason G said...

She got a lot of media exposure. So she's got that going for her.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

If that isn't a text book case of why abortion should be allowed...

Chuck said...

Dave Begley said...
Case is not moot. No case and controversy.


What about when Ken Paxton tries to engineer legal action (civil or criminal) against Mrs. and Mr. Cox for seeking an abortion outside of Texas?

Narayanan said...

looks like lawfare adherents accepts forum shopping for litigation facilitation but disdain medical tourism for self=care [how roe v wade was woven into legal fabric]

Narayanan said...

Ken Paxton was stupid for appealing. Probably damaged his own position on the matter.
====
you are probably right but brinkmanship draws sharp lines showing who blinks first.

rhhardin said...

That's what they do in Europe.

madAsHell said...

Abortion is like a moth to the flame.

I fail to understand why a woman killing her unborn child is a woman's right.

gspencer said...

"I'm bound and determined to kill my child. No matter what it takes!"

Oso Negro said...

A show pussy. A show abortion. A celebration of murder.

Oso Negro said...

Gunner said...
Every time some dumbass Texan official does something like this, it turns 10000 Midwestern women into pro-abortion fanatics.


Good. Let the 10,000 Midwestern women abort their little hearts out. Well, the little hearts of their unborn children. Fewer Midwesterners in the future, more Texans.

Old and slow said...

Well that seems sensible.

Aggie said...

Looks like maybe she didn't want to be a test case pawn after all. I can't fault her, or judge her, because I'm not in her shoes. I agree Paxton appears to be the jerk here, but would need to hear more than a few opportunistic-progressive-attack comments to understand his position.

Readering said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave Begley said...

Case is NOW moot. No case and controversy.

The Vault Dweller said...

The case may be moot and the presumably the Texas law will stay in place as is, but this fact scenario seems like one that even makes lots of Pro-Life women apprehensive. NPR wouldn't report on it unless they felt it strengthened the Pro-Choice argument.

mccullough said...

DB,

She has an argument that it’s “capable of repetition yet evading review.”

In Roe v Wade the plaintiff already gave birth. The state lost on the mootness argument in the US Supreme Court.

That said, if she files a petition for certiorari with the US Supreme Court they will deny the petition.

n.n said...

The abortion was neither purely elective nor for medically tangible causes, and it became a credible consideration after the child was already viable. This is indeed a rare edge case. Downs Syndrome children are posited to occupy the same gray space, and eligible for preemptive planning.

n.n said...

Ireland guarantees abortion of unwanted or undesirable children for social, clinical, political, and fair weather progress. There's an American state that allows post-birth abortion... or was that a hope and dream of its Democratic governor? Whitmer of Whitmer-gate fame celebrates planned parenthood and planned parent/hood.

Rich said...

Texas legislators are going to get a wake up call in 2024.

n.n said...

How would an abortion over the time limit, without medical consent, and the mother's life was not at risk, be handled under Roe, Roe, Roe your baby down the river Styx? Is that when a hospital would share responsibility with a clinic? Or a doctor would sequester the "burden" in darkness?

Jason said...

The First Rule of Abortion Politics is pro-aborts lie about everything.

Keldonric said...

It seem to be a difference between “good faith belief” and “reasonable medical judgment”. I am not a physician or a lawyer. Is there a a good precise definition of these phrases?

To myself as a layman, the ruling by the court almost seems to say that if the physician would have used the right words then the exception would have applied. I am certain that there are documents that define these standards if that is what they are. I would hope that would be the case. I dislike ambiguity and lack of consistency in terminology with a passion.

Keldonric said...

Separately, would mootness of the case be affected if by some chance that the individual's reproductive capacity had been impaired by waiting a short time for the legal mechanisms to operate? Would it be a new case? Just a hypothetical. Again IANAL. There seems to be so much fuzziness here. Could the physician have had come to the opinion that it eould meet "reasonable medical judgment" but not use that terminology due to questions that a board of some type might have for the physician?

iowan2 said...

Where is all the reporting about a coalition of leftists, writing legislation to address their concerns?
That's the dog in the night not barking.

I'm blah about this situation. The reason being, media reporting cannot be trusted. While the woman's medical situation might be enough for exceptions in the law, the left outright lies about situation like this creating their narrative. This particular case is not a medical emergency. Any more than the 17 year old needing an abortion so she can make the Prom. Or the 32 year old that cant take maternity leave because she is on partner track at the law firm. My partners mother was told after an ectopic pregnancy in the 50's she would never have another child, but then had three. That only shows making predictions are hard, especially about stuff in the future.

In this case a trip to a different Doctor addressed all of her concerns, but she made the choice to see a lawyer instead.

Jim said...

And people from KS go to CO to buy weed. Federalism, it’s a thing.

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

Meanwhile, some folks fly to India for reasonably priced knee replacement surgery.

n.n said...

some folks fly to India for reasonably priced knee replacement surgery.

Medicare is underfunded. Medicaid is unfunded. Obamacares shares responsibility through progressive prices and single/central/monopolistic solutions.

loudogblog said...

California has a fund to pay for this sort of thing.

n.n said...

Elective abortion. Eugenics. It's no wonder that the doctors could not reach a consensus to condone her choice.

Václav Patrik Šulik said...

There is a good string of tweets (X-es?) from John McCormack here

He begins "It is false and dangerous to claim that the Texas supreme court denied a 'life-saving abortion.'

Trisomy 18 threatens an unborn child’s life, but the Center for Reproductive Rights lawsuit did not identify any condition that threatened Kate Cox’s life."