Washington, DC — After a week of legal whiplash, Kate Cox was forced to flee her home state to seek abortion care after anti-abortion extremist Texas AG Ken Paxton “personally intervened to endanger Kate Cox’s life and preserve the Lone Star State’s post-Roe dystopia,” reported The New Republic. 

Statement from Michelle Ortiz, Executive Director, Democratic Attorneys General Association:

“Ken Paxton’s actions endangering Kate Cox’s life and threatening to prosecute medical professionals are sickening. Paxton and GOP Attorneys General have repeatedly shown that they will stop at nothing to push their anti-abortion access agenda, even if that means putting their constituents’ health at risk. Abortion is still on the ballot in 2024 and Democratic AGs are proudly on the frontlines of this fight.”

“Damla Carson, Cox’s physician in Dallas, told the court that she had concluded that a dilation-and-evacuation abortion is medically recommended to preserve Cox’s health and future fertility. ‘Dr. Karsan, however, cannot risk liability under Texas’s abortion bans and laws for providing Ms. Cox’s abortion absent intervention from the court confirming that doing so will not jeopardize Dr. Karsan’s medical license, finances, and personal liberty,’ the judge noted. She accordingly granted the TRO against the state of Texas and its officials.”

“After the court’s ruling, however, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded by sending threatening letters to three Houston-area hospitals. He strongly suggested that the state would punish the hospitals and their doctors if they facilitated the procedure, despite the court’s ruling.”

“Through these ambiguities and threats, Paxton and other Texas officials hoped to create a chilling effect that would stop anyone from providing medical care to Cox. Hospitals and their risk-averse legal teams are supposed to second-guess themselves. Doctors are supposed to subordinate their own medical judgment to that of Texas’s ideologically driven lawmakers and attorneys general.”

“…at every step of the way, the state of Texas threatened to jail anyone who tried to help her. Cox was fortunate that she could leave the state. The next Texan woman to experience this may not be as lucky.”

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