Guest Post by Pro-life Leader Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
“A pregnant woman does not need a court order to have a lifesaving abortion in Texas.” So declared the Texas Supreme Court on December 11, 2023 in the case of Cox v. Texas. At issue was Kate Cox seeking an abortion in Texas despite its legitimately enacted law generally prohibiting the procedure. She had received the sad news that her unborn baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18.
But don’t expect Joe Biden or the Democrats to care about the facts of the case. They are going to use this Thursday night’s State of the Union address to put on an abortion circus, and decry the “dangerous abortion bans” that Republicans support.
Kate Cox maintained that she had a medical emergency that necessitated an abortion, and that Texas law was preventing that abortion nonetheless.
Before the Texas Supreme Court issued its ruling, she obtained the abortion out of state.
As it turns out, however, the Texas “ban” on abortion, which Biden and the Democrats are going to demonize, does in fact have an exception that would allow Cox to have an abortion if in fact her doctor, using reasonable medical judgment, attested that her patient has, to quote the law,
“a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.”
The problem here is not the Texas law.
The problem is that Kate Cox’s physician, Dr. Damla Karsan, did not make that assertion.
As the Texas Court described it, “The exception requires a doctor to decide whether Ms. Cox’s difficulties pose such risks. Dr. Karsan asked a court to pre-authorize the abortion yet she could not, or at least did not, attest to the court that Ms. Cox’s condition poses the risks the exception requires.”
The Court said, to be clear, that “If a doctor, using her “reasonable medical judgment,” decides that a pregnant woman has such a condition, then the exception applies, and Texas law does not prohibit the abortion.”
My question is simple. Are we going to hear this on Thursday night? Or are we going to her the propaganda that the likes of the Center for Reproductive Rights spews everywhere: “This is the result of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade: women are forced to beg for urgent healthcare in court.”
My prediction is also simple: We are going to see a circus Thursday night and in the subsequent media commentary. Kate Cox, they will assert, almost lost her life because of a Republican abortion ban in Texas, and she had to flee the state to save herself. This is why, the deluded narrative will continue, Democrats must codify Roe in order to prevent these bans from multiplying across the country or even becoming federal bans on abortion.
The evasion of the facts in this case is, of course, par for the course for the pro-abortion movement and the Democrats. Did Dr. Karsan not know what her duty to her patient was, namely, to use reasonable medical judgment? If in fact the Trisomy 18 diagnosis and the other details of her medical condition posed a risk of death, why not just say so directly?
If Kate’s condition posed a serious risk that her heart or lungs or liver were going to be substantially damaged, why not just say so directly?
The pro-life law in Texas, and in every other state that seeks to protect the unborn and their mothers from the violence of abortion, are not heartless or unreasonable.
But no, that destroys the Democrat narrative. That destroys the pro-abortion State of the Union circus.
What Dr. Karsan actually did was to assert that she had a “good faith belief” that Kate Cox met the requirement for the exception in the Texas law.
Is that how the Democrats do medicine now? And is that how they do law?
This is not a complicated matter if we are going to have an honest debate about abortion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights whines and screams, “It’s despicable that judges and politicians are making healthcare decisions for pregnant people instead of their doctors.”
But Texas law doesn’t put Kate Cox’s medical condition under the judgment of lawmakers, but of doctors. As the Court pointed out, “The Legislature…has delegated to the medical—rather than the legal—profession the decision about when a woman’s medical circumstances warrant this exception.”
No matter what position one takes on abortion, we are a nation of laws. Both the citizens and the Courts have to respect the boundaries the law sets. If they don’t like it, laws can be changed. But there’s no place for blatant dishonesty, or for turning a State of the Union Address into an abortion circus that completely flies in the face of both law and facts in order to advance an agenda of unlimited abortion.
But mark my words. That’s exactly what Biden and his abortion-loving Democrat Party will do this Thursday night. And we need to call them out on it.
