Over the last week, millions of people have learned Kate Cox’s name. The Dallas mother of two’s courageous decision to sue the state of Texas for permission to have an abortion has made nationwide headlines amid her ongoing medical crisis involving multiple trips to the emergency room to manage complications from her much-wanted but nonviable pregnancy.
After an Austin court initially ruled that Cox could legally access abortion care in her home state, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton began waging a grisly campaign to force Cox to stay pregnant against her will, even though her condition puts her life, her health and her future fertility in limbo. Late last week, at Paxton’s behest, the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court paused the lower court’s ruling, blocking Cox’s ability to access abortion near home with no indication of when it might issue an opinion. On Monday, her legal team at the Center for Reproductive Rights announced that Cox had decided to leave Texas to access abortion elsewhere “due to the ongoing deterioration” of her health. It wasn’t until later that day that the Texas Supreme Court finally ruled that, essentially, Cox’s abortion couldn’t be medically necessary, in part because her doctor had gone to court to confirm that it was medically necessary.
Paxton’s weaponization of Cox’s case makes a particularly dark mockery of the nauseatingly saccharine “love them both” anti-abortion motto.
The success of Paxton’s odious, self-aggrandizing threats against Cox, her doctors and her supporters reveals a state gleefully reveling in anticipation of the chance to destroy the lives and livelihoods of Texans who demonstrate themselves to be insufficiently cowed by Texas’ abortion bans. In fact, we should really consider the possibility that the attorney general targeted Cox not despite her condition but precisely because her pregnancy poses serious danger. As ever, the cruelty is the point; Cox’s case rules out any other possibility. Her experience belies practically every so-called pro-life claim ever made about abortion bans and their effects — especially the assertion that “exceptions” will always ensure people in need will be able to access care. Paxton’s weaponization of Cox’s case makes a particularly dark mockery of the nauseatingly saccharine “love them both” anti-abortion motto; his approach is more aptly described as “scare them all.”
The tactics worked: Even before the Texas Supreme Court issued its ruling, Cox left the state rather than leave her life and her fertility at the mercy of the Texas court system. Of course, her departure and the latest ruling came well after Paxton had already seized the opportunity to remind “hospitals, doctors, or anyone else” who provides health care or support to Texans who refuse to give birth or die trying that they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And Texas’ double-stacked abortion bans offer a number of options as far as that goes. Doctors who provide abortions in Texas face $100,000 fines and first-degree felony charges that carry a penalty of up to life in prison, plus, of course, the loss of their licenses. Then, under the state’s “bounty hunter” law, any private citizen anywhere can sue to collect a minimum of $10,000 from those who fund, facilitate or provide abortion care.
On its face, of course, Paxton’s threat was directed at Cox and her medical team and supporters. And that threat is still live; Paxton is precisely the type of lawless ideologue who would like to test how far he can use Texas’ abortion bans to criminalize people who have, provide or support out-of-state abortion care. Monday’s Texas Supreme Court opinion was limited only to Cox’s case, and the court declined to elaborate on the details of the medical exception. The narrow ruling will surely only fan Paxton’s prosecutorial flames, as it dovetails perfectly with his invitation for someone, anyone, to go ahead and try to provide abortion care in Texas — you know, just to see what happens.
It’s clearer than ever that pregnant Texans and their doctors face a puzzle the state has engineered to be unsolvable. Just two weeks ago, the state of Texas argued in front of the Texas Supreme Court that pregnant Texans or their doctors should go to court during active medical crises to get approval for abortions to ensure they don’t run afoul of the state’s abortion bans. Now that Cox and her doctor have done so, the court has said that asking for a ruling on the lawful medical necessity of an abortion — exactly what the state has said Texans should do — demonstrates doctors’ lack of confidence in their own medical judgment, making the abortion in question unlawful by default.
This Catch-22 should be understood as a warning for everyone who might get big ideas about their right to control their own bodies. Paxton understands one thing as well as any of us do: There will always be some Texans whom the state will be unable to force to give birth — those who have the means to travel to access the medical care all of us ought to be able to get in our own communities, whenever we need it and for whatever reason, and not only when we are on the brink of death or when our pregnancies aren’t viable. There are many more Texans who can’t afford to leave — either temporarily to travel for abortion care or permanently. But there are many more Texans who can’t afford to leave — either temporarily to travel for abortion care or permanently — to upend our entire lives and families to resettle in places where we may, at least for now, be less likely to be compelled by the state to carry our pregnancies to term. If Paxton will hound a woman like Cox to hell and back, what might he do to someone with fewer resources? If you’re afraid of the answer to that question, well, you’re supposed to be. These are the real-world, “pro-life” politics of death, fear and control. They are the preferred politics of the anti-abortion movement, however much these cowards may gesture at “compromise” 15-week abortion bans and plead about the “sanctity of life.” As Cox and dozens of other women have shared devastating, near-death stories of being denied abortion care in Texas, anti-abortion forces have shown nary a hint of compassion, though it would take no more than the barest shred of humanity to do so. We know Cox’s name today because she put her life on the line and exposed yet another layer of the depths of anti-abortion depravity, playing out in real time for all to see. Sadly, Texans with complicated pregnancies still face harrowing ordeals, and if the next name the nation learns in connection with Texas abortion bans isn’t a dead woman’s, it will be despite Ken Paxton’s best efforts.
Andrea Grimes
Andrea Grimes is a journalist and activist living in Austin, Texas. 
