The year as I sit here is 2023. I mentioned it because these days it often feels like we are going in reverse peeling back the hard earned rights afforded to American women one layer at a time. The latest example of this involves a situation that sharply underscores the tragedy that can result when ageing white men decide that they should have more control over a woman’s body than the woman’s doctor, or the woman herself. 

A 31-year-old mother of two, Kate Cox of Dallas, Texas, was seeking a 20 week abortion. The reason for this was that the fetus had been diagnosed with trisomy 18. This is a lethal genetic disorder that also presents significant medical problems for the mother and can impact your future childbearing ability. This baby would be miscarried, or it’d be stillborn or would die shortly after birth.

A judge acting on the advice of Cox’s doctors ruled that the abortion could go forward. And then Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an emergency order with the Texas Supreme Court to halt it. That’s right, Ken Paxton decided that he would rather subject this young mother to truly unthinkable trauma, forcing her to endure a pregnancy that will end in either a stillbirth or being forced to witness her child suffer until they die shortly afterwards. He would rather see that happen, then allow her medical decisions to be guided by medical professionals. 

Ken Paxton, he just needed to get his foot in that door. He needed to make sure that this woman would not have the health care required for her to protect her emotional and physical safety, not to mention her ability to have more children in the future, children she desperately wanted. 

So Kate Cox, understandably, not wanting to wait around for the Supreme Court’s ruling given that she was in the midst of a medical emergency and growing sicker by the day, decided to leave Texas in order to secure an abortion in a state where it would be legal.

I am so glad she has the ability to do this. But it is vitally important to remember as Cox’s attorney said in a statement that not everybody does. Only last October, a Texas woman named Miranda Langley, who was pregnant with non-viable — non-viable twins — was forced to carry her babies to term because she could not afford to travel out of state for the procedure. She went into early labor, she endured a high risk delivery. And then she had four hours with her conjoined baby boys. Four hours during which they gasped for air while she apologized to them over and over. And then as all the doctors had promised they would, they died in her arms.

If forcing a mother to carry a baby to term with the certainty that she will then have to watch it die if that’s what our society considers protecting the right to life, something is so broken. So when you vote, I need you to remember Ken Paxton. Ask yourself whether you would want him making medical decisions on your behalf or on behalf of your children. Decisions with very real life and death consequences. I’m guessing the answer is no.