AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Office of the Attorney General filed an appeal Saturday to the Texas Supreme Court after a Texas judge issued a temporary injunction over exceptions to state abortion laws, according to a news release from the OAG’s office.
The ruling clears things up for doctors on when they can provide abortions. Those cases include medical conditions that pose a risk of infection or unsafe pregnancy that could pose a risk to the mother’s health, medical conditions that are exacerbated by pregnancy and fetal conditions where the fetus is unlikely to survive.
The OAG’s office said it filed a Notice of Accelerated Interlocutory Appeal directly to the Texas Supreme Court in the case.
“While a district judge’s ruling attempted to block the state’s enforcement of Texas pro-life laws, this filing stays the ruling pending a decision by the Texas Supreme Court. Texas pro-life laws are in full effect. This judge’s ruling is not,” the OAG’s office said.
In March, the Center for Reproductive Rights sued the state on behalf of five Texas women after they said they were denied abortion access, despite having pregnancy complications that risked their lives or the life of their baby.
“The Court finds that there is uncertainty regarding whether the medical exception to
Texas’s abortion bans… permits a physician to provide abortion care where, in the physician’s good faith judgment and in consultation with the pregnant person, a pregnant person has a physical emergent medical condition,” the ruling states.
The attorney general’s office said protecting the health of mothers and babies is of paramount importance to the people of Texas, a moral principle enshrined in the law which states that an abortion may be performed under limited circumstances, such as in the event of “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy” that places the pregnant woman “at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.”
The OAG will continue to enforce the laws duly enacted by the Texas Legislature and uphold the values of the people of Texas by doing everything in its power to protect mothers and babies, the release said.
To read the filing, click here.