Ken Paxton Should be Aborted

[Joe Guy]

It's not bad enough that a woman would need to have an abortion. Let's go out of our way to make her life more miserable...

Texas Supreme Court temporarily halts ruling allowing Dallas woman to get an abortion
Eleanor Klibanoff


Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked the state Supreme Court to intervene and stop a Dallas woman from having an abortion.

Paxton’s office petitioned the high court just before midnight Thursday, after a Travis County district judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing Kate Cox, 31, to terminate her nonviable pregnancy. Paxton also sent a letter to three hospitals, threatening legal action if they allowed the abortion to be performed at their facility.

On Friday evening, the state Supreme Court temporarily halted the lower court's order but did not rule on the merits of the case. The court said it would rule on the temporary restraining order, but did not specify when.

“While we still hope that the Court ultimately rejects the state’s request and does so quickly, in this case we fear that justice delayed will be justice denied,” said Cox’s lawyer, Molly Duane, in a Friday evening statement.

This is the first time an actively pregnant adult woman has gone to court to get an abortion since before Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. A similar case was filed in Kentucky on Friday.

In the petition, Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court to rule quickly, saying that “each hour [the temporary restraining order] remains in place is an hour that Plaintiffs believe themselves free to perform and procure an elective abortion.”

“Nothing can restore the unborn child’s life that will be lost as a result,” the filing said. “Post hoc enforcement is no substitute, so time is of the essence.”

The Texas Supreme Court is currently also considering a similar case, Zurawski v. Texas, in which 20 women claim they were denied medically necessary abortions for their complicated pregnancies due to the state’s new laws. The state has argued those women do not have standing to sue because, unlike Cox, they are not currently seeking abortions.

In the initial lawsuit, Cox’s attorneys with the Center for Reproductive Rights argued she cannot wait the weeks or months it might take the Texas Supreme Court to rule.

Now, the high court must consider many of the same arguments as those in Zurawski v. Texas, but on a much tighter timeline.

The central question is whether a lethal fetal anomaly qualifies a pregnant patient for an abortion under the narrow medical exception to the state’s near-total abortion ban. Cox’s lawyers argue that continuing this nonviable pregnancy poses a threat to her life and future fertility, thus necessitating an abortion.

Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble agreed, saying it would be a “miscarriage of justice” to force Cox to continue the pregnancy. The state disagreed, telling the Supreme Court that Guerra Gamble’s ruling “opens the floodgates to pregnant mothers procuring an abortion” beyond the scope of the medical exception.

Separately, Duane sent a letter to Guerra Gamble, asking her to bring Paxton in for a hearing on his letter threatening legal action against hospitals that allow Cox to have an abortion.

“The repeated misrepresentations of the Court’s [order], coupled with explicit threats of criminal and civil enforcement and penalties, serve only to cow the hospitals from providing Ms. Cox with the healthcare that she desperately needs,” Duane wrote. “Plaintiffs respectfully request the Court hold a hearing so Defendant Paxton can explain to Your Honor why he should not be sanctioned.”

Texas Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, on behalf of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, condemned Paxton’s comments Friday.

“A Texas woman was just forced to beg for life-saving health care in court and now any doctor who provides her the care she urgently needs is being threatened with punishment including a lifetime prison sentence,” Escobar said in a statement. “This story is shocking, it’s horrifying, and it’s heartbreaking.”

source

[Bicycle Bill]

Someone with the balls and the bucks it would take (and who lives outside of Texas) should purchase her a round-trip airline ticket to someplace where she can get the medical treatment she needs.  If I win the Mega-Millions tonight, I'd be happy to do so on her behalf.  Then if this jack-off wants to try to bring a lawsuit against me for assisting in providing what might possibly be an as-yet-to-be-determined prohibited abortion, we'll let THAT case play itself out in the courts.  My first line of defense, of course, would be that as a resident of someplace OTHER than that armpit of American civilization known as Texas, he and his petty laws have absolutely no jurisdiction over something that I choose to do in Wisconsin.

Or better yet, just vote that asshole and any other asshole like him out of office at the earliest opportunity, and quash this Puritanistic Taliban once and for all.

-"BB"-

[BoSoxGal]

There is a much increased risk of DVT when flying while pregnant, as well as other complications that put life at risk. Nevermind the toll on the woman's body of a surgical termination of pregnancy at 20+ weeks, which is not insubstantial - even a first trimester abortion has uncomfortable physical effects which would be exacerbated while flying, and again the elevated risk of DVT.

Every woman who needs abortion healthcare should be able to get it within a reasonable driving distance of her own home, under the care of physicians of her choosing.

[Sue U]

I used to think we were living in the stupidest timeline, now I find out it's the cruelest.

[Big RR]

Sue--sadly, you got that right.

BSG--while I agree with you, we are stick with the system we have and have to do what we can. I just read recently about an organization called the Brigid Alliance that provides assistance to help women travel to get abortions from areas where it is difficult or impossible to get one. Looks like a good recipient of some holiday giving.

Bill, apparently any size donation you can make will go to help the process you suggest. Worth a look.

[Burning Petard]

Oh BB, you can just go ahead and tell us what you really feel.

The headline for this thread reminds me of an insult the drill sargent pronounced to one of my fellow trainees in basic training at Ft Wood in June of 1960: "When you were conceived, the best part of you ran down your mother's leg."

I really miss Molly Ivins

[Bicycle Bill]

Oh BB, you can just go ahead and tell us what you really feel.

There are times when one needs to tip-toe around the truth, and times when one shouldn't.   I felt this was one of the latter instances.

-"BB"-

[Joe Guy]

Here's the latest....

Kate Cox leaves state for abortion while case waits in Supreme Court
By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) - A woman who had asked a court for an order allowing her to get an abortion under the medical emergency exception to Texas' near-total ban will leave the state to receive care while the state's highest court considers her case, her lawyers said in a court filing on Monday.

Lawyers for Kate Cox said in a filing with the Texas Supreme Court that she nonetheless wished to continue her lawsuit. A lower court last week issued a restraining order allowing her to obtain an abortion, but the state Supreme Court put it on hold while it considers an appeal by Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican.

"Kate's case has shown the world that abortion bans are dangerous for pregnant people, and exceptions don't work," Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Cox, said in a statement.

Paxton's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cox's fetus was diagnosed on Nov. 27 with trisomy 18, a genetic abnormality that usually results in miscarriage, stillbirth or death soon after birth.

Paxton had urged the Texas Supreme Court to quickly step in after District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble at a hearing in Austin last Thursday issued a temporary restraining order allowing Cox to have an abortion. Cox says her continued pregnancy threatens her health and future fertility.

The attorney general's office in a filing to the high court had said Cox falls "far short of demonstrating" she meets the criteria for a medical exception and warned that Texas courts were not intended to be "revolving doors of permission slips to obtain abortions."

Cox's lawyers called Paxton's petition "stunning in its disregard for Ms. Cox’s life, fertility, and the rule of law," and had asked the court to instruct the attorney general's office to comply with Gamble's order.

The case is a major test of the scope of that exception under Texas law, which allows an abortion to save the mother's life or prevent substantial impairment of a major bodily function.

Cox, 31, of the Dallas-Fort Worth area filed a lawsuit last Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order preventing Texas from enforcing its near-total ban on abortion in her case.

Cox's lawyers have said her lawsuit is the first such case since the U.S. Supreme Court last year reversed its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide.

Cox, who was about 20 weeks pregnant when she first sued, said in her lawsuit that she would need to undergo her third Caesarian section if she continues the pregnancy. That could jeopardize her ability to have more children, which she said she and her husband wanted.

"The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability, is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice," Gamble, whose ruling applies only to Cox, said at Thursday's hearing.

Cox had said in her lawsuit that although her doctors believed abortion was medically necessary for her, they were unwilling to perform one without a court order in the face of potential penalties including life in prison and loss of their licenses.

Paxton warned in a letter sent shortly after Gamble issued the order that it did not shield doctors, hospitals or anyone else from prosecution for violating Texas' abortion laws. The letter was sent to three hospitals where Damla Karsan, the doctor who said she would provide the abortion to Cox, has admitting privileges.

Paxton then petitioned the Texas Supreme Court to vacate Gamble's order, arguing "Texas law does not permit abortions solely because the unborn child is unlikely to have sustained life outside the womb."

Cox's lawyer's countered that Paxton's office ignored that the statute also protects patients like Cox from “serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function," and that reproductive functions, which are critical to the creation of new human life, are “major bodily function" under Texas law.

The scope of Texas' medical exception is already before Texas' high court, which is considering a separate lawsuit seeking a broader order protecting women's right to abortions their doctors deem medically necessary. The court heard arguments in that case in late November.

source

[MajGenl.Meade]

Apparently she's left the state (or, it being big n'all) she's still within the borders but on her way out. Good.

Trisomy 18 - my wife and I are only too familiar with it. I hope Ms Cox does well.

[BoSoxGal]

I would love to be the abortifacient.

[Bicycle Bill]

Apparently she's left the state (or, it being big n'all) she's still within the borders but on her way out. Good.

Problem is, once she's had her abortion, she'll probably have to go back (to Texas).

So it's come to this.  People have to uproot their lives, leave their jobs, relocate their families, just to obtain medical treatment — all because some people want to turn America into a theocracy (and that's the MILDEST term I could use).   Meanwhile, if the pop-up ads I keep seeing can be believed, you can get mail-order marijuana, Canadian-sourced generic dick-stiffening pills, or Chinese-printed counterfeit postage stamps delivered directly to your home and no one even bats an eye.

Once again, thanks for nuthin', Trump and your ilk.

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

So it's come to this. People have to uproot their lives, leave their jobs, relocate their families, just to obtain medical treatment — all because some people want to turn America into a theocracy (and that's the MILDEST term I could use).

Sadly, I think it has come to this; at best what we can do is work within the system as it stands while we push for change. Access to medical treatment is paramount, even if it requires those inconveniences; anything less will amount to denying access until this idiocy ends.

[BoSoxGal]

I’m deeply grateful my ovaries long since closed shop, and I feel pain for all the fertile girls and women whose bodies will become property of the state if we don’t get things right next year. I really hope people are paying attention.