The Texas Supreme Court this Friday rejected a lawsuit from women who suffered serious pregnancy complications and who had challenged one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the United States.
The unanimous ruling by the court, whose nine justices are conservative, endorses a rule that, according to its detractors, does not sufficiently clarify when exceptions are allowed for medical reasons.
“The law permits a life-saving abortion,” Judge Jane Bland wrote in the court ruling.
Last summer, state District Judge Jessica Mangrum granted an injunction that prevented Texas from applying the law to doctors who, in their “good faith judgment,” terminated a pregnancy that they believed was not insurance for complications.
This measure was immediately blocked by an appeal by the Texas Attorney General's Office to the state Supreme Court, which now agrees and annuls the lower court's measure.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2023, did not seek to repeal the abortion veto but rather to clarify when exceptions are allowed. The plaintiffs alleged that the law's exceptions, which allow abortion to save the mother's life or prevent impairment of an essential bodily function, are worded too vaguely and create confusion among doctors, who are rejecting some cases for fear of legal repercussions.
They stated that the ban on abortion has caused doctors to fear facing liability if the State does not consider the situation a medical emergency.
