By: Nick Harper

A U.S. study released last month estimates that 64,000 women and girls became pregnant from rape in states that have implemented abortion bans. The research has reignited the debate about a women’s right to choose. But anti-abortion groups in one of the most restrictive states say the data presented in the study is flawed.

By: John C. Moritz

Amy O’Donnell, a policy analyst and communications director for the Texas Alliance for Life, acknowledged that abortion rights activists have skillfully used the Cox case to bring the national spotlight to their cause.

Kate Cox, who sued for the right to have an abortion after learning that her fetus had a condition that is nearly always fatal, left the state to get an abortion. The state Supreme Court ruled against her.
While saying “our hearts go out to the Cox family,” O’Donnell said abortion rights organizations are using “a lot of misinformation” about whether a baby can survive trisomy 18.

“It’s incredibly important that we educate Texans and people in general, not just on the issue around trisomy 18, and the fact that that’s not always fatal, and that every life is valuable and worthy of protection,” O’Donnell said. “But also that our laws clearly allow doctors to intervene to save a woman’s life or to save her from the risk of impairment, substantial impairment of a major bodily function such as fertility.”

By: Constitutional Nobody

“We are grateful that the Texas Supreme Court affirmed the protections in Texas law for the unborn baby in this case,” said Amy O’Donnell, Texas Alliance for Life’s communications director. “Texas Alliance for Life strongly supports the law, as passed by the Texas Legislature, that protects unborn babies from abortion but also protects the lives and health of pregnant mothers through limited exceptions.”

The Supreme Court pointed out that Texas’ law allows abortions when a pregnancy endangers a mother’s life or risks substantial impairment of a major bodily function (such as fertility) in a doctor’s reasonable medical judgment, an objective standard.

By: Selena Simmons-Duffin , Diane Webber , Michel Martin

Anti-abortion rights groups in Texas cheered the high court’s decision. “We are grateful that the Texas Supreme Court affirmed the protections in Texas law for the unborn baby in this case,” wrote Amy O’Donnell of Texas Alliance for Life. In a previous statement, the group said the Center for Reproductive Rights was using Cox’s case to “chisel away” at Texas’s abortion laws.

4. Texas doctors face malpractice on one side, felony charges on the other
In court and in legal filings, Paxton’s office has repeatedly argued that women with life-threatening pregnancies who did not get appropriate care in Texas can and should sue their doctors for malpractice.

At the same time, all of Texas’s abortion laws target doctors who perform abortions with penalties. Doctors face life in prison, fines of $100,000 and loss of their medical license.