This article was updated Dec. 12 with additional information as the case developed.
For months, advocates of the new law that bans almost all abortions in Texas have been telling us there is an exemption for medically necessary terminations of pregnancies. Turns out that is a big fat lie. But we should have known that already.
Despite protestations by the author of the bill who said he’s “shocked” the language is vague, what’s crystal clear now is the language is vague on purpose. It’s about as clear as a parent’s promise to take their child to the movies when they “behave right.”
Mark Wingfield
If ever there were a case to be made for an exemption to the draconian law in Texas, it is with Kate Cox, a 31-year-old woman who lives near Dallas and is carrying a fetus with Trisomy 18, a fatal chromosomal abnormality. An always fatal to the fetus abnormality that also can cause the mother to be unable to bear other children if left untreated.
But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — an impeached liar and swindler — doesn’t give a damn about any of that. He only wants to score points with the anti-abortion-at-all-costs crowd that stands beside his crooked ways at all costs.
After a judge ruled in favor of Cox’s request for an exemption to the abortion ban, Paxton rushed in to block the order and to threaten any doctor or hospital that performed the procedure for Cox. That’s right: He threatened to prosecute any doctor or hospital that followed the judge’s order to allow the emergency termination of a nonviable pregnancy.
And his reasoning? That judge was not medically qualified to make such a decision.
But apparently Paxton, who never has carried any pregnancies we know of, is so qualified. Talk about mansplaining.
“Apparently Paxton, who never has carried any pregnancies we know of, is so qualified. Talk about mansplaining.”
This situation is absurd and terrifying at the same time. This is why some women of child-bearing age are leaving Texas; they are horrified to think they could become the next Kate Cox.
Cox is none of the things the strident anti-abortion crowd screams about most: She is married, she does not hate children, she wants to have other children, she is white, she is self-sufficient.
And yet our state attorney general is moving heaven and earth to prevent her from having a medically necessary procedure. Because he and others in his camp never intended there to be an actual medical exemption. They just pretended there was one.
This reminds me of what we saw unfold in the Southern Baptist Convention during the so-called “conservative resurgence” of the late 20th century. As the insurgent conservatives began to gain majorities on trustee boards at seminaries, they claimed they merely wanted “parity” of viewpoints among faculty. They said they intended to “balance” the faculty to give equal weight to inerrantists.
That lasted about two years — until the fundamentalists gained even more seats on the trustee board and enforced strict litmus tests not only on new faculty hires but on the retention of existing faculty. It wasn’t about parity; it was about absolute control.
This is the way religious fundamentalism works. Its adherents must have total conformity, total control, with no exceptions.
This leads to absurdity. After this opinion piece was published, the Texas Supreme Court sided with Paxton and ruled there could be no exception for Cox. And then Texas Values, one of the far-far-right right groups driving the conservative agenda in Texas had the audacity to issue a news release with the following headline: “Disabled Baby Protected; Texas Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Lower Court Ruling on Abortion.”
“Disabled” baby?
And then in a denial of medical science, the Texas Values news release went on: “The Texas Supreme Court temporarily halted a lower court ruling from last week which would have allowed a Texas woman to obtain an abortion of her baby. The woman’s baby was diagnosed with a genetic condition, but there is no determination that the condition is terminal.”
But wait, there’s more. Jonathan Covey, policy director for Texas Values, dug the hole deeper: “We’re grateful the Texas Supreme Court recognizes and upholds life. To desperate pro-abortion groups trying to open a gateway in Texas: Give up immediately. Our state law is strong and clear. Life is precious and every child deserves to be celebrated no matter how long they live.”
Connect the dots to the abortion debate by witnessing last week’s letter from the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission warning of the possibility that a pregnant child who has journeyed from Central America to the Texas border seeking asylum and been raped along the way just might want to abort that pregnancy. A child. Raped. Pregnant.
The problem in Texas and in several other states right now is the most strident anti-abortionists are overplaying their hand. Poll after poll finds a majority of Americans believe abortion should be allowed in certain circumstances. Even Republicans believe this.
“The most strident anti-abortionists are overplaying their hand.”
The cruelest anti-abortion crusaders who control state legislatures and national House seats through gerrymandering — meaning they have no real challengers to contend with — now run the risk of alienating even their own base. They have gone too far.
Now is the time for women and men, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons to stand up and tell people like Ken Paxton to sit down and shut up because they are not medically qualified to make the edicts they are proclaiming.
Kate Cox has the resources to leave our fair state and get the medical attention she needs elsewhere. But many other women do not and will not.
Even if you oppose abortion on principle, would you value the lives of women enough to grant that sometimes they need medical care beyond what a group of power-hungry white men say they should have?
They’ve been lying to you. This isn’t about protecting women or families. It is about punishing women and families. It’s time to wake up and act.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of the new book Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves.