The woman who took on the Texas abortion ban
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2023
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
Kate Cox caught the attention of the nation last week when she asked a Texas judge for permission to end her pregnancy. Today on “Post Reports,” we talk to Caroline Kitchener about the new legal battles over abortion access.
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Kate Cox caught the attention of the nation last week when she asked a Texas judge for permission to end her pregnancy.
Three days later, a pregnant woman filed suit anonymously in Kentucky, arguing that the state’s near-total abortion ban violates her constitutional right to privacy and self-determination.
And across Texas, Tennessee and Idaho, several dozen women who had previously experienced pregnancy complications are awaiting decisions in a string of cases that could expand the health exceptions in their state abortion bans.
Today, Caroline Kitchener unpacks the legal battles of testing state abortion bans, and what Cox’s story can tell us about the future of abortion care in America.
Today’s show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy. It was mixed by Ted Muldoon. It was edited by Maggie Penman. Thank you to Reena Flores and Ariel Plotnick.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Kay Cox is a 31-year-old woman from the Dallas-Texas area. |
| 0:07.0 | She already has two kids. |
| 0:08.6 | She was looking forward to having her third. |
| 0:11.4 | And until recently, she was expecting her third. And until recently she was expecting her third. |
| 0:13.2 | Caroline Kitchener reports on abortion for the post. |
| 0:22.8 | And for the past week, she has been following the story of Kate Cox. |
| 0:27.5 | She was 20 weeks pregnant, and she learned that her baby had tries in the 18, |
| 0:32.3 | or Edward's syndrome. That is a condition with an extremely low |
| 0:36.1 | chance of survival. Babies would trisomy 18 usually die before birth or just after. This diagnosis is what's called a fatal fetal |
| 0:48.2 | anomaly which means there's very little chance of survival for the fetus. |
| 0:53.4 | But in Kate Cox's case, there were further complications. |
| 0:57.1 | She said that she has been to the ER four times |
| 1:01.2 | during the course of her pregnancy with severe cramping and |
| 1:05.8 | unidentified fluid leaking. She also has had two C sections already so that puts her at a very high likelihood |
| 1:14.6 | that she would have to have a third, |
| 1:16.0 | and that would impact her future fertility. |
| 1:20.9 | In light of all these risks, Cox decided to get an abortion, but because she lives in Texas, that meant a legal battle that went all the way to the state Supreme Court. |
| 1:32.0 | From the newsroom, to the state supreme court. |
| 1:34.6 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:38.1 | I'm Martine Powers, and it's Wednesday, December 13th. |
| 1:42.0 | And today I talked to my colleague Caroline |
| 1:44.1 | about what happened to Kate Cox, |
... |
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