Plaintiff Kate Cox has asked the court to temporarily block Texas’s abortion bans and allow her to obtain urgent abortion care to avoid the dangerous risks of being forced to stay pregnant.

Kate’s story

Kate’s story

Kate Cox, of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, was delighted to discover she was pregnant again. Already parents to two children aged 1½ and 3, Kate and her husband always wished to have a large family. But at 20 weeks into her pregnancy, she received confirmation that her pregnancy was diagnosed with Trisomy 18—a condition causing multiple structural abnormalities—and had no chance of survival.

Although her doctors told her she would be unable to obtain abortion care in Texas because of the state’s bans, Kate was warned by both her OB-GYN and MFM specialist that if she remained pregnant, she risked debilitating health complications. Since she had delivered her two children by C-section, she would likely need to undergo a third C-section to deliver this pregnancy, which would place her at high risk for multiple serious medical conditions such as uterine rupture and hysterectomy and lessen the likelihood she’d be able to safely have more children in the future. 

Kate contacted the Center after seeing news about arguments in the Zurawski v. State of Texas case, which occurred on the same day she received her fatal fetal diagnosis. Kate decided to pursue this case against Texas even though she is in the midst of an active health crisis. 

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