Kate Cox is ready to talk about her experience, and she’s speaking out about the grim reality for pregnant women in post-Roe America.
Kate Cox, a Texas mother of two, was thrilled to find out she was pregnant with her third child last year. But the dream of expanding their family quickly turned into a nightmare when Cox and her husband were told that their fetus had an anomaly called trisomy 18 that, in their case, was fatal. It’s a genetic condition that causes significant growth delays, and is usually fatal in utero or shortly after birth; while there are some cases of infants with trisomy 18 surviving past the first year, Cox’s doctors told her that their baby had so much damage to the heart and brain that there was no chance of survival. Continuing the pregnancy would put her own health at risk, and a third delivery could put her future fertility in jeopardy.
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But ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion has been almost entirely illegal in Texas, and anybody who performs one can be subject to legal jeopardy. So in December, Cox asked a Texas court for a temporary restraining order to permit her doctor to perform an abortion, becoming the first pregnant woman in the U.S. to sue for the right to terminate her pregnancy since the Dobbs decision. She was represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is also representing 20 other women in Zurawski v. Texas, a landmark lawsuit asking the Texas Supreme Court to clarify the state’s medical exceptions to its abortion ban.
A judge granted Cox the temporary restraining order allowing her to get an abortion, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stood in the way, threatening to prosecute her doctors and petitioning the Texas Supreme Court to weigh in on her case. Cox ended up going to New Mexico to terminate her pregnancy, just as the state Supreme Court blocked the lower court’s ruling allowing her to receive care.
Now, months after her abortion, Kate Cox is ready to talk about her experience. As you’ll hear in our conversation, she’s speaking out about the grim reality for pregnant women in post-Roe America, and she recently attended the State of the Union as one of Jill Biden’s guests. I went down to Dallas to meet Cox in her home to hear her story. And stay tuned for my forthcoming profile of Cox on TIME.com.
Tune in every Thursday, and join us as we continue to explore the minds that shape our world. You can listen to the full episode here, but here are a handful of excerpts from our conversation, which have been condensed and edited for clarity.