Texas is blocked from enforcing its abortion ban against people with certain pregnancy complications, including fetal conditions where the fetus is unlikely to survive after birth.
Travis County District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum said Friday that the temporary injunction “is necessary to preserve Plaintiffs’ legal right to obtain or provide abortion care in Texas in connection with emergent medical conditions under the medical exception and the Texas Constitution.”
The ruling was a win for pregnant women and physicians who sued the state in March. The patient plaintiffs were “delayed or denied access to abortion care because of the widespread uncertainty regarding physicians’ level of discretion under the medical exception to Texas’s abortion bans,” the court said.
Texas can’t enforce its abortion ban if a pregnant person has a complication that risks infection or is otherwise unsafe, or if the person has a condition made worse by pregnancy that can’t be treated, according to the court’s order.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit, said in a Friday statement that “doctors have been turning patients away because they face up to 99 years in prison, at least $100,000 in fines, and the loss of their medical license for violating the abortion bans.”
The Texas Attorney General’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The plaintiffs are also represented by Morrison & Foerster LLP and Kaplan Law Firm.
The case is Zurawski v. Texas, Tex. Dist. Court, Cty. of Travis, No. D-1-GN-23-000968, 8/4/23.
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