December 12, 2023 @ 8:10 PM
In a recent episode of “All In with Chris Hayes” on Tuesday, the show’s host emphasized how the Kate Cox abortion case in Texas is “the nightmare scenario come true” for reproductive rights in the United States. “There it is,” he continued. “Right now, happening, before our eyes: the nightmare scenario that proponents of abortion rights have warned about for 50 years.”
“It just happened to Kate Cox, in Texas. And it is coming for everyone. ” he added. “Make no mistake. This movement, the one that you just saw pursue control over Kate Cox’s body, to appeal to the state Supreme Court, to issue threatening letters to hospitals, that movement is not going to relent.”
“They will never give up on their aims of exerting that level of control over every single woman’s body in this country,” Hayes said.
At 31 years old and a mother of two, Cox is at the heart of a legal battle over access to abortion in the state. She is pregnant with her third child, who was diagnosed with trisomy 18 in early December. The chromosomal condition is often fatal, and carrying the pregnancy to term puts both Cox’s life and the life of the unborn fetus at risk, and could also negatively impact her chances of conceiving and giving birth again.
The pair insisted in court filings that their doctor told them “there was virtually no chance that their baby would survive to birth or long afterwards” but Cox was denied an abortion in the state. Texas began banning nearly all abortions in 2022, and the state also has a law that allows private individuals to sue if they suspect an illegal abortion has taken place.
For Hayes, the issue impacts everyone. He also said, “Every voter in this country needs to understand that they could be Kate Cox. And everyone in this country needs to understand that they could be Kate Cox’s loved one. Kate Cox could be in your family, and you could be going through that.”
“And we all will be,” he warned, “if Republicans remain in power and expand that power.”
Hayes was joined by Molly Duane, a senior attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights and the lawyer who currently represents Cox in Texas. After she explained that Cox was doing as well as could be expected, Duane clarified, “A week is a short amount of time for a court, but for a person, a real person, in a medical emergency with young children and a family, it was agonizing.”
“I just really want people to put themselves in her shoes,” Duane added. “And think about who they want in the medical room with their husband and their doctors. Is it [Texas Attorney General] Kent Paxton? Or not.”
Watch the segment from “All In with Chris Hayes” in the video above.