Octopus Overlords

His appeal to the Texas Supreme Court in Ms. Cox’s case followed his letter to three Houston hospitals where he said Dr. Karsan is authorized to admit patients and could perform the abortion, warning them that the judge’s order would not shield them from eventual prosecution or civil lawsuits.

Lawyers for Dr. Karsan have said in legal filings that she believes her patient’s abortion is medically necessary to preserve her health and future fertility.
But in his letter, Mr. Paxton warned the order would not constrain state officials or private citizens from filing criminal or civil lawsuits against the hospital or others, such as Ms. Cox’s husband, who might help her obtain an abortion.

He reiterated that position in his filings to the Texas Supreme Court.

“Nothing will prevent enforcement of Texas’s civil and criminal penalties once the T.R.O. erroneously prohibiting enforcement is vacated,” the filings from his office read.

A pregnant woman in Kentucky filed a lawsuit Friday demanding the right to an abortion, the second legal challenge in days to sweeping abortion bans that have taken hold in more than a dozen U.S. states since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year.

The suit, filed in state court in Louisville, says Kentucky’s near-total prohibition of abortion violates the plaintiff’s rights to privacy and self-determination under the state constitution.

The plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe, is about eight weeks pregnant and she wants to have an abortion in Kentucky but cannot legally do so because of the state’s ban, the suit said. She is seeking class-action status to include other Kentuckians who are or will become pregnant and want to have an abortion.

GreenGoo wrote: Sat Dec 09, 2023 1:11 pm Wtf is going on down there?

El Guapo wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 5:08 pm Just saw a breaking news item that the woman in question is going to travel out of state to have the procedure done. Presumably driven by medical necessity.

You figure that probably will bring an end to the legal proceedings, though appeals courts do sometimes issue decisions on otherwise moot matters if they're "likely to recur", so still possible that there could be a ruling on the merits here (for good or ill).

stessier wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 5:43 pm

El Guapo wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 5:08 pm Just saw a breaking news item that the woman in question is going to travel out of state to have the procedure done. Presumably driven by medical necessity.

You figure that probably will bring an end to the legal proceedings, though appeals courts do sometimes issue decisions on otherwise moot matters if they're "likely to recur", so still possible that there could be a ruling on the merits here (for good or ill).

The original Roe v Wade was this way, wasn't it? I would think a similar argument could be made that we need a ruling as future cases will also be moot before a court can work through the full appeals process.

"Due to the ongoing deterioration of Ms. Cox’s health condition ... Ms. Cox is now forced to seek medical care outside of Texas," Molly Duane, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Cox, said in a court filing Monday.

...

In the Monday filing, Cox’s attorneys said that another reason she chose to leave the state is the attorney general’s “ongoing threats” to enforce Texas’ abortion laws against her.

After the lower court’s ruling, Paxton said in statement that the order would not prohibit private citizens or a district or county attorney from enforcing Texas’ pre-Roe abortion laws against Cox’s doctor or anyone else. He added that the judge’s order would “expire long before the statute of limitations for violating Texas’ abortion laws.”

The Texas Supreme Court has reversed a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed Kate Cox to obtain an abortion under the state’s “medical emergency” exception.

...

As his office has done in the broader case on this issue before the state Supreme Court, Paxton’s attorneys also argued “a fatal fetal condition does not meet the medical exception,” adding the exception applies only to the mother’s condition.

...

Paxton’s office also said none of the physicians who have treated Cox, who live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, have recommended an abortion.

Dr. Damla Karsan, a Houston-based physician, a plaintiff in the other case, is cited in legal filings as having reviewed Cox’s medical records, recommended the abortion, and agreed to provide the medical care.

The state wrote in the filing Karsan’s recommendation “is not enough.”

“What he’s (Paxton) saying is that physicians in Texas shouldn’t be practicing medicine.” Duane said. “Ken Paxton is practicing medicine – because that’s what he wants – he wants to review her medical records. He wants to decide if he thinks she’s sick enough.

“When people tout the medical exceptions to abortion bans as meaning that the abortion bans are OK, and that people who really need care are still getting it, that’s a lie.”

The case shows why “it is completely untenable for patients to have to come to court and ask for court authorization for lifesaving medical care,” she said. “It’s simply outrageous and people should be outraged but what is happening in Texas right now.”

Daehawk wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 12:21 am Can we saw off Texas and Florida like they do in Loony Toons?

Unagi wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:07 am I'm a little annoyed how they keep saying 'a black woman'. Does her race have anything to do with the story? no.

gilraen wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 11:27 am

Unagi wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:07 am I'm a little annoyed how they keep saying 'a black woman'. Does her race have anything to do with the story? no.

Except you never know if her race had something to do with the fact that the hospital decided to call the cops when she showed up after having miscarried. Or with the prosecutor deciding to press these outrageous charges.

El Guapo wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 1:45 pm

gilraen wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 11:27 am

Unagi wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:07 am I'm a little annoyed how they keep saying 'a black woman'. Does her race have anything to do with the story? no.

Except you never know if her race had something to do with the fact that the hospital decided to call the cops when she showed up after having miscarried. Or with the prosecutor deciding to press these outrageous charges.

Yeah, that's the relevance of it to the story. It shouldn't be a factor, but it's hard not to believe that her race isn't part of why she was treated this way.

Brittany Watts was still hooked to an IV, sick for almost a week from a potentially fatal miscarriage, when a detective from the Warren Police Department in Ohio stepped into her hospital room. He assured her that she wasn’t in any trouble.

For more than an hour, Detective Nick Carney interviewed Watts, 33, about the details of that morning and the whereabouts of the nearly 22-week-old fetus that was declared nonviable two days earlier. As Watts described miscarrying in her bathroom, a nurse at Mercy Health — St. Joseph Warren Hospital rubbed her shoulders and told her everything would be okay, Watts told The Washington Post in a series of text messages.

Two weeks later, Carney arrested Watts on charges of felony abuse of a corpse for how she handled the remains from her pregnancy. If indicted and found guilty, she faces up to a year in prison along with a fine of up to $2,500, her lawyer said.

...

“Moving this over to the individual after a miscarriage just heightens the question, ‘What are they supposed to do?’ ” said Dov Fox, a national health law and bioethics expert at the University of San Diego School of Law. “If it’s already difficult for hospitals, for individuals facing difficult circumstances and navigating pregnancy loss to undertake the medical system is not just a tall order but a prohibitive one.”

Watts later learned through her lawyer that the nurse who had reassured her had reported her to the police.

Zarathud wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 5:13 pm Anyone who would force a woman to have a Trisomy baby is uncaring and spiteful. And supports their personal principles over reality and suffering.

Smoove_B wrote: Mon Dec 25, 2023 10:18 pm Wow, that is grim.

malchior wrote: Mon Dec 25, 2023 9:54 pm Washington Post

Brittany Watts was still hooked to an IV, sick for almost a week from a potentially fatal miscarriage, when a detective from the Warren Police Department in Ohio stepped into her hospital room. He assured her that she wasn’t in any trouble.

BREAKING: Fifth Circuit holds that fed'l emergency room protections (EMTALA) do not mandate that physicians provide abortions when that is the "stabilizing treatment" needed, upholding an injunction issued in a lawsuit brought by Texas. More to come:

Federal regulations do not require emergency rooms to perform life-saving abortions if it would run afoul of state law, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent hospitals guidance, reminding them of their obligation to offer stabilizing care, including medically necessary abortions, under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).

“When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted,” the guidance said.

Texas sued, saying this was tantamount to a “nationwide mandate that every hospital and emergency-room physician perform abortions.” Several anti-abortion medical associations joined the lawsuit as well.

Since summer 2022, all abortions have been banned in Texas, except to save the life of the pregnant patient. But doctors, and their patients with medically complex pregnancies, have struggled with implementing the medical exception, reportedly delaying or denying abortion care rather than risk up to life in prison and the loss of their license.

YellowKing wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2024 10:48 am If anyone ever asks me why I won't vote Republican, my reply will be "because if they had their way, my wife would be dead and my two kids wouldn't exist."