TX Supreme Court Rules on Her Case as Mother Flees Texas to Get and Abortion

The Texas Supreme Court released an opinion at 5 p.m. Monday that the emergency stay of an injunction, against a lower court's decision to allow the abortion to proceed, is moot. In the opinion, the Texas Supreme Court offered background that has not been widely reported.

In the seven-page opinion, the court stated that the law only required that a doctor determine that the abortion is necessary to 1.) save the life of the mother or to 2.) prevent serious risk of a substantial impairment of a major bodily function (in Cox's case, the ability to have children in the future qualifies).

Yet, the court noted, Cox's doctor would not declare either exception as a medical professional as the law was written. Instead, Cox's doctor, Dr. Damla Karsan, wanted the courts to decide if Cox could have an abortion.

All the legislature's law required was a doctor to issue his or her "reasonable medical judgement" about the health of the mother in order to claim the exception. And, absent a doctor's opinion, there is nothing for the courts to decide, the supreme court stated.

"A woman who meets the medical-necessity exception need not seek a court order to obtain an abortion. Under the law, it is a doctor who must decide that a woman is suffering from a life-threatening condition during a pregnancy, raising the necessity for an abortion to save her life or to prevent impairment of a major bodily function. The law leaves to physicians—not judges—both the discretion and the responsibility to exercise their reasonable medical judgment, given the unique facts and circumstances of each patient," states the Dec. 11, 2023 opinion from the Texas Supreme Court.

You can read the entire opinion here.

In conclusion, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled, "A pregnant woman does not need a court order to have a lifesaving abortion in Texas. Our ruling today does not block a life-saving abortion in this very case if a physician determines that one is needed under the appropriate legal standard, using reasonable medical judgment. If Ms. Cox’s circumstances are, or have become, those that satisfy the statutory exception, no court order is needed. Nothing in this opinion prevents a physician from acting if, in that physician’s reasonable medical judgment, she determines that Ms. Cox has a “life threatening physical condition” that places her 'at risk of death' or 'poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.'"

Cox’s case has garnered national attention as Texas’ abortion ban faces its first major test of whether it applies to women facing pregnancy complications like Cox’s. The state Supreme Court is also deliberating a separate case called Zurawski v. Texas, in which 20 women are suing for clarified language in the state abortion ban that defines when a doctor may intervene to protect a mother’s life.

“The trial court’s order represents an expansion of the statutory exceptions to Texas’s abortion prohibitions. Because the life of an unborn child is at stake, this Court should require a faithful application of Texas statutes prior to determining that an abortion is permitted,” the Attorney General’s Office wrote in a petition to the state Supreme Court.

The Center for Reproductive Rights is not disclosing where Cox traveled to seek care. It is not clear whether she has already received the abortion.