HOUSTON – The Texas Supreme Court late on Dec 8 blocked an emergency abortion for a woman whose foetus was determined to be not viable, United States media reported.

It was a closely watched case, underlining the legal perils facing both doctors and patients when it comes to the procedure.

Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton petitioned the high court to stop Ms Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two, from terminating her pregnancy after a district judge ruled a woman with a potentially life-threatening pregnancy can obtain an abortion.

Texas has some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation, prohibiting it even in cases of rape or incest.

District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble on Dec 7 said Ms Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant, should be permitted to have an abortion under a medical exception provision of the Texas law that allows the procedure when a woman’s health is at risk.

But Mr Paxton, a conservative Republican, objected to the finding, saying the “activist” judge’s order does “not insulate hospitals, doctors or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws”.

The Texas Supreme Court ordered a stay late on Dec 8, according to a copy of the ruling released by Ms Cox’s lawyers, temporarily halting the district court’s decision.

“While we still hope that the Court ultimately rejects the state’s request and does so quickly, in this case we fear that justice delayed will be justice denied,” attorney Molly Duane from the Centre for Reproductive Rights, which represented Ms Cox, said in a statement following the high court’s stay.

“We are talking about urgent medical care. Kate is already 20 weeks pregnant. This is why people should not need to beg for healthcare in a court of law.”

The Centre for Reproductive Rights said it believed the Texas case was the first in which a woman was asking a court for an emergency abortion since Roe versus Wade was decided in 1973.

District case

“All of her doctors have told her that the baby will be stillborn or will live for only minutes, hours or days,” attorney Molly Duane said during the lower court emergency hearing held over Zoom.

Ms Duane said the pregnancy poses multiple health risks to Ms Cox and her future fertility, and falls within the medical exception to Texas’ abortion laws.

“In the state’s eyes, Ms Cox simply isn’t sick enough, isn’t close enough to death, to qualify for the exception,” Ms Duane said.

“It is clear that the attorney-general of Texas thinks he is better suited to practise medicine than the physicians of his state.”

Mr Johnathan Stone, an attorney who represented Texas in the hearing, argued that the abortion should not be allowed until a full hearing of the medical evidence is held.

“The abortion once performed is permanent and cannot be undone,” he said. That was met with a blistering reply from Ms Duane.

“I would just note that the harm to Ms Cox’s life, health and fertility are very much also permanent and cannot be undone,” she said.

‘Miscarriage of justice’

District Judge Gamble had granted Ms Cox the right to an abortion, saying the risk her pregnancy posed to her fertility was such that blocking the termination would be “a genuine miscarriage of justice”.

Mr Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Centre for Reproductive Rights, accused Mr Paxton, the attorney general, of “fearmongering” with his threats of legal action against a doctor or hospital that performs Ms Cox’s abortion.

Texas doctors guilty of performing illegal abortions face up to 99 years in prison, fines of up to US$100,000 (S$134,000) and revocation of their medical licences.

While the state’s law does allow abortions in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, doctors have said the wording is unclear, leaving them open to legal consequences.

Texas also has a law that allows private citizens to sue anyone who performs or aids an abortion.

Its high court heard arguments last week in a case brought on behalf of two doctors and 20 women who were denied abortions even though they had serious – in some cases life-threatening – complications with their pregnancies.

The lawsuit argues that the way medical exceptions are defined under the state’s abortion restrictions is confusing, stoking fear among doctors and causing a “health crisis”. AFP