Los Angeles (USA), Dec 12 – U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday described as “outrageous” the case of Kate Cox, a 31-year-old woman who had to leave the state of Texas to get an abortion despite being pregnant at risk.
“No woman should be forced to go to court or flee her state just to get the health care she needs. But that is exactly what has happened in Texas thanks to Republican elected officials, and it is simply outrageous,” the president said in a statement.
Biden’s remarks come after the Texas Supreme Court stayed a lower court’s ruling that allowed Cox, a 20-week pregnant Dallas native, to terminate her pregnancy to protect her health.
Hours earlier, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, R-Texas, had asked the Supreme Court to rule against the decision because Cox’s case did not qualify for the state’s medical exception for abortion.
The conservative prosecutor also sent a letter to the three Houston hospitals where Cox’s doctor, Damla Karsan, may have performed the abortion, warning that he would prosecute any doctor or health care facility involved in the procedure.
This decision prompted Cox to leave Texas to terminate her pregnancy outside the conservative state’s borders.
“Republican elected officials have imposed dangerous abortion bans that endanger women’s health, force women to travel out of state for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors. Their agenda is extreme,” Biden stressed Tuesday.
Texas has passed the most restrictive laws against abortion in the United States, even before June 2022, when the ‘Roe v. Wade’ ruling, which constitutionally protected the termination of pregnancies in the United States, was abolished.
In September 2021, the ‘Heartbeat Law’ went into effect in Texas, which prohibits abortion if cardiac activity is detected in the fetus, something that happens at six weeks gestation, when many women do not even know they are pregnant.
Two weeks ago, the Texas Supreme Court held a hearing on a similar case involving twenty women who sued the state claiming that the laws are vague regarding medical exceptions related to pregnancies dangerous to the health of the pregnant woman.