Abortion in Texas: the court decides, the state decides, she doesn't decide

A quick reaction to the devastating abortion news from the Lone Star State

I thought, when I was thinking about this post last night, that I would be writing some relatively good news.

And “relative” is all it is – it’s not exactly good news, is it, when a court intervenes to give a woman permission to have reproductive healthcare because a state’s abortion ban is now so extreme that even the fact the foetus has a fatal anomaly, even the fact that continuing the pregnancy risks the woman’s health and future fertility, even the fact that women should have human rights… even counting all of this, a woman is not permitted to ask for an abortion for herself. A court must decide for her.

But even the relatively good news that a court had given a woman permission to have a health-saving abortion is now out the water.

Woah woah woah, I hear you readers say. Back up a second Sian, what are you on about? Not everyone is enmeshed in abortion stories, not when Rwanda and covid inquiry and war in Ukraine and Gaza and Tory implosion is going one! We need background.

Apologies. I’ll take a breath. And start again.

On Thursday, it was reported that a Texas state court had given permission to Kate Cox to have an abortion to protect her life, health, and future fertility. Cox, who wants to be a parent, is in the devastating situation where her foetus has a fatal anomaly and will not survive beyond birth. Continuing the pregnancy will endanger Cox’s own life and health, and risk her not being able to have children in the future. An abortion will save her life, health, and is extremely unlikely to have any impact on her future fertility (no matter what the antis claim in their disinformation).

The presiding judge Maya Guerra Gamble said in her decision that “the idea that Ms. Cox wants so desperately to be a parent and this law may have her lose that ability is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice.”

Texas has one of the most extreme anti-abortion laws in the world. Not only is abortion banned in almost all circumstances, but the ‘vigilante’ law means that private citizens can sue abortion providers and those who assist patients seeking an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. This has a chilling effect on doctors who may be afraid to provide abortion care even when there is a threat to the mother’s life, in case they are prosecuted under the laws.

So I was all prepared to write my SubStack on this ruling and how, while it was good news that Cox will be able to access abortion care, it is clearly a horrific state of affairs when a judge has to decide whether or not a woman is entitled to her full human rights.

But last night, the situation changed again.

Last night, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily halted the lower court ruling. Within hours of Gamble’s decision, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court to block the order immediately and stop Cox from having an abortion. Paxton also issued a letter threatening to prosecute any doctor who gave Cox an abortion, despite the court order.

What this means is a woman who is 20 weeks pregnant, who wants to have children but is pregnant with a foetus that will not survive, who knows that continuing the pregnancy will jeapordise her health and future fertility, is waiting to find out if a bunch of mainly-men believes she is entitled to reproductive healthcare that could save her life and her chances of having a family.

And they call this “pro-life”.

Cox is being supported by the Centre for Reproductive Rights, whose senior staff attorney Molly Duane said last night: “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”.

Because yes, it’s important to remember that Cox is 20 weeks pregnant. There is a biological time limit on when she can receive the healthcare she needs. The longer the courts take to decide whether or not Cox is, indeed, a person with human rights, the more at risk she is. The antis bang on about so-called “partial birth abortion”, but this is what they are promoting with these delays. The horror is almost too much.

This case is devastating. I cannot begin to comprehend the pain that this family is enduring right now. To be forced to carry an unviable pregnancy to term is so traumatising, to be forced to give birth when you know the baby will die – the cruelty of it makes my head and heart hurt. I remember working on the Irish abortion referendum and reading testimonies from women with FFA who went into hiding, because having to endure the questions of well-meaning people about the baby, unable to respond “my baby will die”, was too awful.

But beyond the personal – and we must not forget that behind every abortion ban are 1000s of personal stories of pain, trauma, chances lost, futures denied – this case speaks to the absolute horrors of what abortion bans mean for women everywhere.

Right now, judges and legislators in Texas are deciding whether or not a woman is entitled to the same human rights that men are. They are deciding whether or not a woman has a right to health. A right to bodily integrity. A right to life.

A woman in Texas – and in vast swathes of the US and the world – is not automatically entitled to those rights. The rights that men have, the rights that the man deciding this case have. The rights that men take for granted. Women’s humanity is dependent on the decisions of the courts. Women’s survival and future fertility and future hopes for a family – all of this is dependent on the decisions of the courts that have already decided through the ban that women are not equal to men.

She doesn’t get to say. She doesn’t get to decide.

What this case shows, and all the cases like it shows, is that to those who ban abortion, women are not considered human.

Now, they would deny that of course. The new, polished rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement is no longer that women are murderers and monsters (although there are plenty around who still say that). The modern anti-abortion movement positions itself as caring about women’s human rights, as supporting women with “love and truth and hope and care”, as one of the anti-abortion training webinars I attended droned on about. It claims that the pro-abortion movement are the “real misogynists”. If you read anti-abortion petitions or literature, it is full of the language of rights and care.

This was a deliberate strategy to “use the language of the opposition against them”.

But that is bullshit.

What is happening in Texas right now, with this case and with every woman denied abortion care, is the deliberate denial of a woman’s human right to health, which is recognised in the UNDHR. It is a statement that women do not have the same access to human rights as men. And it is a statement that women’s bodies are not our own.

To them, we are vessels. We are walking wombs. To them, women do not have the rights to decide what happens to our bodies. Women are not to be trusted. It is for the courts, for the state, to decide.

Obligatory book plug

Like this post? Then you’ll love a whole book on how the hell did we get to Roe being overruled.

It’s called Bodies Under Siege and you can buy it direct from Verso - it’s on sale, all print books have 20% off – or at all good bookshops. Second book proposal has gone to my editors now. Am I excited? Or exhausted at the mere thought? The jury is out.

What I loved

OK, I didn’t love this. I was devastated by it, in tears, and it comes with a lot of trigger warnings, but it is the article I wanted to share this week. Christina Lamb is one of the best reporters in the world, a true shero, and this was a devastating account of the sexual violence committed by Hamas on 7 October.

First Hamas fighters raped her. Then they shot her in the head

What I wrote

BLANK SPACE!

It is not accurate to say I wrote nothing, I am working on four really complicated investigations right now, two of which won’t be published until next year. I have been writing loads! But nothing yet published…

What I read

Lots of Irish novels? So many Irish novels right now? I read two this week, and then I look at my Kindle and I’ve got two more Irish novels to read.

My first ever Anne Enright, The Wren, The Wren, followed by Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting. Both excellent, I felt like I lived in the pages of The Bee Sting.

Now I am reading The Scarlet Papers by Matthew Richardson which is fab, I love a post-war, cold-war spy story with a woman leading the way. I like to imagine the outfits.

Also, I think I forgot to mention Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder in one of my previous round-ups? But OH MY GOD what a triumph. It was so unexpected and soooooooooooooooooo good. One of my books of the year. Just thrilling on every level.

What I watched

I went to see Cavalliere Rusticana and Pagliacci at the ROH and was swept away. The staging of it was wonderful, they set both operas in the same Italian village, with the same characters occupying the space. So, for e.g. the lovers in Pagliacci met and then flirted during the intermezzo in Cavalliere Rusticana… the mother and daughter in law in Cavalliere Rusticana made up in Pagliacci… It also reminded me of the Ferrante novels, poverty and violence and patriarchal dominance and normal life carrying on in mid-century Italian neighbourhood. Also the intermezzo made me cry.

That’s all for this week. Here is a photo of my Christmas tree.