A number of Republicans and states overreached after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and that played into the hands of Democrats and their media. The media has rushed to amplify some select cases while also lying about them.
Take the Texas case now playing out on the national stage.
Texas Supreme Court Rules Against Woman Who Sought Court-Approved Abortion – New York Times
Texas Supreme Court rules against woman at center of abortion battle – Washington Post
Is that what actually happened?
You can believe the media or you can look at the actual Texas Supreme Court ruling. (Crazy, right? Going to the source. Who does that anyway? Just listen to NPR or read the New York Times. Never do your own research.)
Kate Cox and her husband Justin are the parents of two children. Ms. Cox is about twenty weeks pregnant with a third child—one who has received a tragic diagnosis. The Coxes and their doctor sue to prevent the enforcement of Texas laws that generally prohibit abortion…
Only a doctor can exercise “reasonable medical judgment”1 to decide whether a pregnant woman “has a life-threatening physical condition,” making an abortion necessary to save her life or to save her from “a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” If a doctor, using her “reasonable medical judgment,” decides that a pregnant woman has such a condition, then the exception applies, and Texas law does not prohibit the abortion.
In this case, the pleadings state that Ms. Cox’s doctor—Dr. Damla Karsan—believes Ms. Cox qualifies for an abortion based on the medical-necessity exception. But when she sued seeking a court’s pre-authorization, Dr. Karsan did not assert that Ms. Cox has a “life-threatening physical condition” or that, in Dr. Karsan’s reasonable medical judgment, an abortion is necessary because Ms. Cox has the type of condition the exception requires. No one disputes that Ms. Cox’s pregnancy has been extremely complicated. Any parents would be devastated to learn of their unborn child’s trisomy 18 diagnosis.
Some difficulties in pregnancy, however, even serious ones, do not pose the heightened risks to the mother the exception encompasses. The exception requires a doctor to decide whether Ms. Cox’s difficulties pose such risks. Dr. Karsan asked a court to pre-authorize the abortion yet she could not, or at least did not, attest to the court that Ms. Cox’s condition poses the risks the exception requires.
Despite this, the trial court ruled that a prospective abortion would “fall within the medical exception” to Texas’s abortion laws. Based solely on the verified pleading, it issued an order restraining the Attorney General from enforcing the abortion laws against Dr. Karsan and others related to the case. The State seeks relief from the trial court’s order.
What the Texas Supreme Court actually ruled was that a lower court could not simply set aside the law.
Trisomy 18 is serious. The mortality rate is very high. It’s a nightmarish thing to deal with. The high mortality rate for the child does not qualify for an abortion as it’s not a serious risk to the mother.
Whether the law should allow for such things is another matter, but it did not, and the court does not have the authority to create such a law. That was the whole issue with Roe v. Wade. Courts cannot simply set aside the law and invent their own.
Pro-abortion groups pushed this case because they’ve understood that the ‘lethal fetal condition’ is a wedge issue.
Pro-life groups tend to oppose exceptions for lethal fetal conditions while most people tend to be for them. That’s why this case was brought to begin with instead of the mother just flying into California to have the procedure performed there.
The media lied about the case and used it as propaganda, but that was inevitable. Republicans and conservatives, fresh off multiple defeats, do need to think about how to make these arguments and how to modify the laws to deal with such cases.