Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother, is the latest victim of Texas’s near-total abortion ban. After she made multiple emergency room visits and her health worsened, Cox and her attorneys requested she be provided a legal abortion, and won a district court’s approval. Within hours, the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned hospitals against performing the procedure, and within days the state’s Supreme Court rejected the lower court’s decision. Cox is one of the thousands of people who cannot access safe and legal abortions in Texas; so she crossed state lines for the procedure.
This is outrageous, but not surprising. No one should have to travel long distances to receive reproductive healthcare, yet 21 states are forcing many to do so. The district court which granted Cox’s request operates under the same system that ultimately blocked her healthcare access and took away her right to choose.
We cannot rely on the laws and courts of an oppressive system that wants to dictate our lives. When we have won any degree of reproductive freedom at all, it has been when people have organized to demand it.
