Paxton said in a letter that the order by District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin did not shield doctors from prosecution under all of Texas’s abortion laws, and that the woman, Kate Cox, had not shown she qualified for the medical exception to the state’s abortion ban.
Paxton said in a statement accompanying the letter that Guerra Gamble’s order “will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability 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.
“Fearmongering has been Ken Paxton’s main tactic in enforcing these abortion bans,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Cox, said in a statement. “He is trying to bulldoze the legal system to make sure Kate and pregnant women like her continue to suffer.”
So much for that whole “doctors are simply being overly paranoid in administering justified abortions - we never intended the law to work this way!” talking point thing they were doing. Here we have a woman whom both doctors and judges agree should be able to get an abortion, yet they’re like “oh, well, no, that doesn’t qualify!”
If this case doesn’t qualify, then what does?
And this woman also WANTS to have the baby. She and her husband were trying to get pregnant. Unfortunately, the fetus has abnormalities that mean it won’t survive. Without an abortion, she will need to wait until she hits term, have a C Section, and then have a dead baby.
Oh, and thanks to her medical history, she’ll likely be unable to have another pregnancy after that C-section. So it’s either give birth to a dead baby now and have no more or have an abortion now and (after she recovers) try to have another baby. Only one of these options might result in a baby that’s alive and it’s the option that includes abortion.
But Paxton will scream about how he’s “protecting the unborn baby” without caring that the fetus has a nearly zero chance of survival and without caring that the woman faces potential severe (possibly life threatening) medical complications if she’s forced to continue the pregnancy. He’ll force women to carry pregnancies to term even if it kills them!
This should surprise no one by now.
My only surprise is that this kind of scenario came up so fast. I expected years of matricide before all the right spines aligned.
Roe was passed in the courtroom on privacy - which another future court can still make a solid case for - but it was sold to the people as protecting women. Abortion is going to happen, that’s the hard truth. How many women, and girls, have to needlessly die? That’s just future mothers being removed from the field. Population goes down when abortion is outlawed, because girls will travel, or take it into their own hands. There isn’t some mythical white baby boom. There is, however, a marked decline in crime starting ~20 years after Roe was passed. Cuz all the unwanted children weren’t born and raised being reminded that they’re unwanted their whole life.
I’m not a fan of abortion as elective birth control, but I can acknowledge when my opinions would make terrible policy. The “irresponsible” women who couldn’t stick to a pill a day, or re-up on her implant appropriately, if she can’t handle that, do we want her to raise children?
That’s rhetorical. The answer doesn’t matter. It’s the implied reasoning that’s the point.
In my humble opinion, Paxton can’t leave this planet fast enough, Texas needs to go blue, and Republicans can prattle on and on on Fox news until they become a meme, the face of white fragility.
I’d love to see abortions be safe, legal, and rare. If people want to reduce how many abortions occur, they should find out why women get abortions and then figure out ways to help women so that they aren’t in those situations.
For example, if women are getting pregnant and resorting to abortion as “birth control,” then give better sex education and make contraceptives as affordable and available as possible.
Sadly, the right seems to want to make it so more women NEED abortions while less have access to them. Using birth control again, they like pushing abstinence only sex education (which doesn’t work) while restricting access to birth control. Some have even been calling for making birth control illegal!
Paxton doesn’t give a shit about the fetus. He wants this woman to suffer and be unable to have children because he believes she deserves it.
Probably only the underaged women that they’ve groomed and gotten pregnant.
When that’s the case we should call them “girls,” because that’s what they are.
Way more dangerously: those white old blokes honestly think that their opinion should have any weight when a judge has told them it hasn’t and a doctor has told them the facts.
Republicans are selling some delusion they have (or lie if they know better) that there’s a magical moment a doctor can 100% determine whether or not someone will live or die at that exact point if they do or don’t get an abortion. Doctors mitigate risk whenever possible, you can’t wait until things are a total catastrophe and then expect doctors to be able to rescue a patient from it unscathed. It’s just not how medicine works, it’s probabilistic. There’s no way you can write a law about this that will accurately capture all situations, any law limiting the ability of doctors to perform abortions will hurt people in the end. Government needs to keep itself out of the doctors office and let patients make these difficult decisions with the help of their doctor.
“Party of small government”, ridiculous
That’s the problem when they look at the world in black and white. In medicine doctors are dealing with complex systems, using limited information, and leaning on statistics both for the likely diagnosis and the proper treatment.
No wonder they don’t get it.
A reminder …
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was recently acquitted by the state Senate on 16 articles of impeachment, but the state’s top lawyer still has multiple legal battles ahead.
Paxton has been under an ongoing federal investigation in Texas since the fall of 2020, when the FBI began to probe allegations of abuse of office and misconduct brought by a group of whistleblowing former employees.
Paxton takes being a piece of shit politican to the next level.
When you are literally the person who determines what cases get prosecuted, somehow you never suggest prosecuting yourself or your wife.
That sounds like a choice that should go in front of some kind of panel or board rather than being one person’s decision.
Well, he was recently impeached, where he must face a trial in the Texas legislature to determine whether he should be removed from office. Most of the Texas legislature are from the same political party as him, though, and they acquitted him of all charges.
Headline should hwve been “Texas AG threatens to prosecute doctors for following a court order”
Freedom is when not Doctors, not Judges, but POLITICIANS get to decide what basic healthcare YOU get to receive!
At least it’s not those darn death panels, whew!
Oh wait except kind of the opposite.
Texas is rapidly becoming Gilead. Women are objects that incubate fetuses and nothing more. Medical concerns about the mother or the fetus are irrelevant.
It seems to me that if we care so much about women giving birth and maintaining the population, we would be much better off incentivizing women to conceive additional children when they are ready, rather than forcing them to birth an unwanted or even nonviable baby immediately.
But that would make too much sense. And I know it’s about control and not even what I said. Frickin people I swear.
