Texas’ Abortion Law Maximizes Suffering

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has chosen chauvinist power over the health of a Texan in need.

Kate Cox, a Dallas mother of two, was excited to learn she was pregnant with her third child. But at twenty weeks, that excitement turned to heartbreak as she learned the fetus had trisomy eighteen, a chromosomal abnormality that leads almost all pregnancies to end in stillbirth or miscarriage. The prognosis for those born alive is equally bleak. As Cox indicated, it is not if she will need to say goodbye to her child, but when.

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed each state to decide on the legality of abortion, it put the health and lives of millions of women in jeopardy. Ultraconservative states like Texas—which already had an abortion prohibition enacted before the Civil War that Roe rendered unenforceable—jumped at the opportunity to once again control women’s bodies. Texas’ current abortion law criminalizes performing an abortion from the moment a heartbeat is detected, unless the pregnant patient is facing “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by or arising from a pregnancy.”

Cox sued for her right to obtain an abortion, arguing that the law allows abortions for medical emergencies such as the one she was experiencing. She also cited her desire to terminate her pregnancy because she wanted to have more children in the future, and to be around for the two children she currently has. Her argument runs directly counter to the narrative most anti-abortion lawmakers push—that people want to terminate a pregnancy because they simply don’t want a child.