The Texas Supreme Court has halted a lower court ruling that would have allowed a Dallas woman to have an abortion after she learned the fetus has a fatal condition.
Late on Friday night the state’s court said that ‘without regard to the merits’ of the case it is taking an administrative stay before ruling.
The decision came in response to an appeal from Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, who opposed the woman’s abortion.
The stay means an earlier order from a judge in Travis County district court permitting the abortion is now on hold.
That order allowed the woman, Kate Cox, to obtain an abortion and protected her doctor from civil or criminal liability under Texas’s strict overlapping abortion bans.
‘We fear that justice delayed will be justice denied,’ said Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Cox.