A woman who sued Texas for access to abortion seeks a procedure out of state instead

by Selena Simmons-Duffin December 11, 2023

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Kate Cox is about 21 weeks pregnant and her fetus has a condition that is almost always fatal. She is also having problems with her own health that has sent her to the emergency room multiple times. Cox family hide caption

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Cox family

Kate Cox is about 21 weeks pregnant and her fetus has a condition that is almost always fatal. She is also having problems with her own health that has sent her to the emergency room multiple times.

Cox family

Kate Cox, a 31-year-old woman from the Dallas area facing pregnancy complications who had sued the state of Texas for access to an abortion, has left the state to get the procedure, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“This past week of legal limbo has been hellish for Kate,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, wrote in a statement. “Her health is on the line. She’s been in and out of the emergency room and she couldn’t wait any longer.” The group notes that Cox is not giving interviews and that the details about where she traveled for the abortion is not being disclosed to the public.

On Monday evening, hours after Cox’s lawyers announced her decision to leave the state for care, the Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case. It found that her lawyers and doctor had not proven she was eligible for an abortion under Texas’s narrow exception to its abortion ban.

Texas enacted some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, before and after the constitutional right to an abortion was repealed when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.