(TheLastPatriotNews.com) – Texas’s strict anti-abortion law, which bans the killing of unborn infants after the sixth week of pregnancy, has suffered a legal setback after a judge ordered an exemption for complicated pregnancies.
Last Friday, Travis County District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum issued a temporary injunction exempting women with “complicated pregnancies” from the state’s “heartbeat law,” Newsmax reports.
Siding with women and doctors suing Texas, the judge argued the legislation lacked clarity with respect to the medical exemptions from its abortion ban.
“The Court finds that there is uncertainty regarding whether the medical exception to Texas’ 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,” Mangrum declared in her ruling.
Her injunction is expected to be appealed, but it will remain in force until the end of the lawsuit against Texas’ abortion ban or until a higher court intervenes.
According to the judge, doctors cannot be prosecuted because of their “good faith judgment” if they provide abortions for specific medical conditions, namely: “those that pose infection risk or make pregnancy unsafe, where the fetus is not likely to survive the pregnancy after birth, and where a medical condition cannot be effectively treated during pregnancy or requires ‘recurrent pervasive intervention.’”
Abortionist activists welcomed Mangrum’s ruling and temporary injunction.
“Today’s ruling alleviates months of confusion around what conditions qualify as medical emergencies under Texas’ abortion bans, giving doctors permission to use their own medical judgment in determining when abortion care is needed,” commented the Center for Reproductive Rights, the group which filed the lawsuit.
It initiated the pro-abortion legal action in March on behalf of several Texas women who alleged they were denied abortions because of the heartbeat law even though they faced severe risks for their lives due to their pregnancies.
Their lawsuit has become “the first apparent case of pregnant women suing over curbs imposed after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022,” the report notes.
Texas’ heartbeat law bans abortion with minimal exceptions. Travis County District Judge Mangrum has set March 25 as a trial date in the case.
