DALLAS — Kate Cox, the Dallas woman who sued and fled the state in December to get an abortion after she learned her fetus had a lethal fetal anomaly, announced she’s pregnant in a new interview Thursday.
The mother of two told CNN she’s three months pregnant and expecting a boy.
“It’s such a hard feeling because so much happiness, but also being so scared at the same time,” Cox said in the interview. “I live in a state where emergencies in pregnancy can happen in a moment, and if I have an emergency, my first call would be my lawyer and my second call would be my doctor. How upside down is that?”
Cox, 31, added that she’d been in and out of the emergency room during her last pregnancy with issues like severe cramping and bleeding.
“On top of that, we had the most devastating news that parents can receive when it comes to their baby – that our baby would never survive,” Cox said of the baby she lost, which she said would have been named Chloe.
Cox filed a lawsuit in December asking courts to allow her to terminate her pregnancy after she learned her fetus had full trisomy 18.
The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, alleged that continuing the pregnancy posed a threat to Cox’s health and future fertility.
The Texas Supreme Court then overturned a court order that would have allowed Cox to get an abortion hours after she announced she was leaving the state to get the procedure.
More recently, in May, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the state’s near-total abortion ban enacted after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, ruling that the medical exceptions in the law were broad enough to withstand constitutional challenge.
Finally, The Texas Medical Board June 21 adopted guidance on how to interpret the state’s new abortion laws.
According to the Texas Tribune, the final guidance states Texas law bans abortion, except when a doctor, in their “reasonable medical judgment,” believes it is necessary to save the life or protect the health of the pregnant patient.
Cox became emotional in the CNN interview, saying she might not have been able to have her so-far healthy pregnancy now unless she’d left Texas for the procedure.
“She had a devastating, fatal fetal anomaly with a slew of really heartbreaking conditions that she never would have been able to survive and we didn’t want her to suffer. We made the most compassionate decision for our family,” Cox said of the baby she lost.