Texas abortion case goes before state's highest court, as more women join lawsuit

On Tuesday, the Texas Supreme Court will consider this question: Are the state's abortion laws harming women when they face pregnancy complications?

The case, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, has grown to include 22 plaintiffs, including 20 patients and two physicians. They are suing Texas, arguing that the medical exceptions in the state's abortion bans are too narrow to protect patients with complicated pregnancies. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is fiercely defending the state's current abortion laws and arguing that the case should be dismissed.

At a hearing in Austin on Tuesday, the nine Texas Supreme Court justices will consider whether to apply a temporary injunction that a lower court judge ruled should be in place. That injunction would give doctors greater discretion to perform abortions when a doctor determines that a woman's health is threatened or that a fetus has a condition that could be fatal. It would make more people eligible for exceptions to Texas's abortion bans, but it would not overturn those laws.

Dr. Dani Mathisen, 28, is one of seven new plaintiffs who joined the case earlier this month. She is in her medical residency as an OB-GYN and comes from a family of physicians, so when she was pregnant in 2021 and getting a detailed ultrasound test at 18 weeks gestation, she knew something was very wrong.