Press Releases
12/13/2023
Attorney General Tong Joins Multistate Coalition Condemning Texas Supreme Court Decision Upholding the State's Dangerous Abortion Ban
(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong and a coalition of 11 attorneys general released the following statement after the Texas Supreme Court denied abortion access to Kate Cox, a pregnant woman whose health and life were at risk as a result of a lethal fetal diagnosis. Ms. Cox was forced to travel out of state to receive abortion care.
“No one should be forced to fight in court and leave their home state just to receive the health care they need. As this case shows, abortion bans pose dangerous health and safety threats wherever they are enacted. Decisions about abortion care should be made between patients and their doctors, not politicians. We will continue to fight to ensure everyone has the freedom to make their own reproductive health care decisions,” said the coalition.
On December 8, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed Ms. Cox to obtain an abortion under the exception to the state’s abortion bans permitting abortions in cases of risks to the pregnant person’s life. On December 11, the Texas Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision, preventing Ms. Cox from seeking an abortion, even though she had learned that her fetus had a fatal genetic condition and her doctor had testified that continuing to carry the pregnancy would jeopardize her life, her health, and her future fertility. The court found the legislative exception to Texas’s abortion bans did not encompass Ms. Cox’s condition because she had not shown it was sufficiently “life threatening.”
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, Attorney General Tong has taken numerous steps to ensure safe access to reproductive healthcare. Earlier this year, Attorney General Tong took up the fight to protect medication abortion access by challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s unnecessary and burdensome mifepristone restrictions in a lawsuit filed in Washington State district court and joining a multistate coalition amicus brief in Texas district court. He also joined coalitions in defending safe access to medication abortion, joining additional briefs opposing cruel and draconian anti-abortion laws in both Texas and Idaho. Attorney General Tong also created the position of Special Counsel for Reproductive Rights within the Office of the Attorney General to protect reproductive care both in Connecticut and anywhere those rights are challenged across the country.
Joining Attorney General Tong in condemning the Texas Supreme Court’s decision are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.
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Media Contact:
Elizabeth Benton
elizabeth.benton@ct.gov
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