Kate Cox, the woman who sued the state of Texas to have an abortion late in pregnancy after her preborn daughter Chloe was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, announced in an interview with CNN that she is pregnant again. She followed up that interview with a speech at a pro-abortion event on the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade with Kamala Harris.
“You may remember, she sued Texas last year for a court-approved abortion to end her dangerous pregnancy,” began CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “At the time her baby was diagnosed with a deadly genetic condition and it put her life at risk as well. In the end, she had to flee her home state of Texas for the life-saving procedure.”
Let’s unpack these multiple falsehoods from CNN.
A “dangerous” pregnancy with a baby with a “deadly” condition and a “life-saving” abortion
1. Cox’s pregnancy was no more “dangerous” than any other pregnancy Cox would have.
Cox had previously undergone two C-sections, which put her at an increased risk of uterine rupture with any subsequent pregnancies and a vaginal delivery. Uterine rupture can cause infertility, and Cox wanted more children. A history of C-sections also put women at risk of placenta previa and isthmocele, which is when a pouch of tissue forms on the uterine wall at the site of a C-section incision that hasn’t healed completely. This increases the risk of abnormal bleeding in future pregnancies.
These risks still exist for Cox in her current pregnancy.
2. Trisomy 18, also called Edward’s syndrome, is not “deadly.”
Parents of children with Trisomy 18 have been rightly outraged about this lie, which is based on outdated studies from data at least 20 years old. Trisomy 18 has not been considered “incompatible with life” since 2019, and research is proving that children with Trisomy 18 can survive if they are given the medical care they need. While there are children with the condition who die during pregnancy or die shortly after birth, many are surviving longer.
Research from the University of Michigan’s Mott Children’s Hospital showed that by “taking an aggressive approach to treatment, 90% of babies born with Edwards syndrome can go home from the hospital, and their five-year survival rate can reach close to 77%.”
3. The baby’s Trisomy 18 did not put Cox’s “life at risk.”
While there isn’t much data on the effects of carrying a baby with Trisomy 18 to term for the mother physically, a study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that the “odds of developing” gestational diabetes or preeclampsia “were not increased.”
There is a known risk of increased amniotic fluid and the need for a C-section, but the Texas Supreme Court heard her case and determined that her life was not on the line. Texas law allows for abortion when the mother’s life is in danger.
4. The abortion was not “life-saving.”
Again, Cox’s life was not at risk, and killing her baby would have been unnecessary even if her life had been at risk. But when the state Supreme Court determined this, Cox traveled to New Mexico for the abortion.
In addition to those falsehoods from CNN’s Collins, Cox herself made comments indicating that misconceptions still exist surrounding what abortion is and isn’t.
A D&E abortion for Chloe
Cox explained, “I’m grateful that I was able to access health care and that we got to make the decision that felt compassionate for our family. She had a devastating fatal fetal anomaly with a slew of really heartbreaking conditions. She never would have been able to survive and we didn’t want her to suffer. We made the most compassionate decision for our family. We made it together.” (emphasis added)
But Cox sued to specifically have a D&E abortion — the most common (and arguably the most brutal) abortion procedure in the second trimester. Some abortionists cause fetal demise — the baby’s death — at the start of the procedure by lethal injection to cause cardiac arrest, but others do not. Dismemberment is not a compassionate choice.
During a D&E procedure, the cervix is dilated and the abortionist uses a Sopher clamp to grasp the arms and legs of the preborn baby and pull them off one by one. Once the arms and legs are removed, the abortionist will crush the baby’s skull and possibly decapitate her before confirming this final blow has been successful by watching brain matter flow out of the mother’s body.
Tragically, this abortion almost certainly caused Chloe to suffer, as research shows that children likely can feel pain as early as the end of the first trimester. Modern medicine by way of palliative care after birth would have ensured that Chloe would not have suffered.
Killing one baby to have another
During the interview, CNN’s Collins noted that if Cox had not been able to abort Chloe she wouldn’t now be pregnant with her son. Cox agreed, saying, “It’s our dream to expand our family so I’m so grateful today to be here, to be pregnant, for us to get to expand our family.”
This portion of the conversation tragically celebrates the intentional killing of a child as the catalyst for the creation of another child. Because Chloe had a disability, her life was seen as expendable, and her premature death is celebrated as the way in which a new “healthy,” more valuable, and wanted baby could be created.
In case of emergency?
Cox spoke about her current pregnancy and her fear that though her preborn son has been deemed healthy so far, his health status — or hers — could change at any time, and if it does, “… my first call would be my lawyer and my second call would be my doctors. How upside down is that?”
It’s hard to imagine that when facing a pregnancy complication, a mother would first want to inquire, “Is the situation bad enough that I can abort my baby?” rather than asking the doctor, “How can we save my baby?”
Cox added, “… I don’t want to be scared if my water breaks too early, I have a miscarriage that I’m not going to be able to access care. It’s very scary… I know my doctors are scared.”
But once again, as has been common in deceptive media reports, this is a dishonest portrayal of what the law in Texas allows in an obstetric emergency.
Texas law defines abortion as “the act of using or prescribing an instrument, a drug, a medicine, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to cause the death of an unborn child of a woman known to be pregnant.” (emphasis added)
When treating a miscarriage, the intent isn’t to cause the child’s death. And intentionally causing the death of the child is not the standard of care for the preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM).
In cases of PPROM, doctors would attempt to stop labor and monitor the mother for infection and the baby for fetal distress. Cleveland Clinic explains that when PPROM occurs in pregnancies under 34 weeks gestation, doctors can administer corticosteroids to help develop the baby’s lungs, antibiotics to prevent infection and prolong the pregnancy, tocolytics to attempt to stop labor, and magnesium sulfate to help the baby’s brain.
If labor is unable to be halted, or the pregnancy must end for medical reasons, doctors would proceed with delivering the baby — and if possible, save both mother and child. If the child does not survive due to prematurity, this is not an abortion, because doctors did not intentionally cause the child’s death. It’s illogical and senseless to believe that in modern medicine, the only solution to the premature rupture of membranes is to dismember the baby.
In a miscarriage, the child has already died. In the event of a “threatened miscarriage,” the miscarriage hasn’t happened yet and doctors can take steps to try to prevent it.
Reasons for late abortions
Cox attempted to explain why she thinks it’s common sense to kill a child before that child can die naturally. She said, “[W]e had the most devastating news that parents can receive when it comes to their baby, that my baby would never survive. My doctor said every case she’s seen like this either demise is in utero or hours or days once they’re born. So to force me to continue that pregnancy — where’s the sense in that?”
Cox appeared to claim at one point that preborn children, including her daughter Chloe, didn’t even “exist.” She said (emphasis added), “And we see more and more women, families, speaking out, because the reality is, this is what late-term abortion looks like. I see so often, people try to legislate for people that don’t exist… And when a woman has late-term abortion, it’s because something catastrophic has happened. And it’s the most devastating time.”
This is rhetoric, and we hear it a lot. But actual research says otherwise about the reasons for late abortions.
One study from the pro-abortion group ANSIRH states (emphasis added), “The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester.” The study noted that women have abortions in the third trimester for multiple reasons, including because they didn’t know they were pregnant, or they had difficulty arranging abortions earlier, or that the baby had a health problem or disability. (None of the abortions in the study were committed due to the mother’s health being at risk.)
Even the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reported in 2016 that at least 75% of abortions at 13 weeks and beyond were elective — meaning the mother chose to abort her baby after 13 weeks without any medical indications.
Despite these facts, the CNN interview portrayed late abortions as tragic necessities.
Other research indicates it is beneficial to the mother to carry her child to term after a prenatal diagnosis. In a study of 267 parents who lost a child due to a diagnosis of life-limiting anencephaly, women who had an abortion reported significantly more despair and depression than women who carried to term. Additional research on infant loss found that while any prenatal or infant loss is traumatic, “Risk of complicated grief was found to be especially high after termination of a pregnancy due to fetal abnormality.” In a study of 405 parents who carried to term following the prenatal diagnosis of a life-limiting condition, 97.5% of participants reported an absence of regret in carrying to term. Another study determined that “Couples experienced selective termination as traumatic … [T]he women ultimately felt as if they were betraying themselves and their babies.”
At the event with VP Harris on the anniversary of the fall of Roe, Cox claimed, “Wanted, prayed-for pregnancy sometimes ends in abortion.”
Yes, it does — and this is a tragedy, because it doesn’t have to. No pregnancy ever has to end with the intentional killing of the child.
