Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Dallas-Fort Worth married mother of two, might die. She’s not recovering from some tragic accident, nor does she have some kind of untreatable ailment. The best path to her health is eminently clear and medically proven: an abortion to terminate an unviable 20-week pregnancy, as recommended by her doctors.
Those doctors notably don’t include Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has gotten the state Supreme Court to halt a lower court’s temporary restraining order that had given her the right to obtain such an abortion under one of the state’s narrow exceptions to a near-total ban. To ensure that Cox wouldn’t move ahead with a procedure, Paxton also sent letters to several hospitals threatening legal action if they provided Cox the medical care that she so desperately needs.
A MEDICAL DECISION of Cox and her doctors, supported by her husband, should be up to Cox and her doctors, not Paxton and some judges. The same goes for all women and girls. Abortion care, freely sought and properly medically regulated, should always be available to anyone who needs it, regardless of how compelling politicians might consider their personal circumstances. Nonetheless, Cox’s plight really puts the lie to the claim that any part of this is about protecting life.
