Tierra Walker Died Under Texas's Abortion Ban. Now Her Family Is Suing.

Ken Paxton has been particularly aggressive.

Do you remember Kate Cox? She asked the judge for permission to have an abortion.

The judge said yes.

And Ken Paxton responded with a goddamn press release warning that the judge's order would not protect doctors or hospitals from civil or criminal liability.

The loose translation? If you give Kate Cox the abortion this judge just authorized, I'm going to still come for you later.

Walker's family alleges that this regime of fear deprived Walker of her constitutional right to life.

Unfortunately for Walker's lawsuit, Texas already has a defense.

If doctors are too afraid of an abortion ban to provide an abortion that the ban supposedly allows, blame the doctors, not Texas.

That defense comes from a case called State v. Zyrowski.

The patients in Zyrowski had been denied abortions while dealing with dangerous pregnancy complications.

The doctors who joined the case said basically, we don't know when the hell we're allowed to act.

And guessing wrong could mean prison, massive fines, and losing our license.

We're talking 99 years in prison and nearly $100,000 in fines.

The Texas Supreme Court responded, but doctors don't have to wait until a patient is actively dying.

If the pregnancy threatens the patient's life or could seriously harm them, doctors can provide an abortion.

And the court was remarkably blunt about this.

If a doctor tells a patient, your condition threatens your life, but Texas law won't let me give you an abortion, the Supreme Court said that doctor is simply wrong about the law.

So that's great.

So glad we cleared that up.

The Texas Supreme Court largely accepted Texas's argument that doctors have room to act under the abortion ban.

So now, in Tierra Walker's case, Texas gets to say, the Supreme Court of this state already told doctors that they don't have to wait until a patient is at death's door.

If Tierra Walker qualified for the medical exception, then the law did not prevent her doctors from providing an abortion.

So if Tiara Walker should have received an abortion and didn't, why the hell is that our fault? Texas has also told patients for years, if your doctor said no when you qualified under the exception, sue your doctor, not us.

So that's what Walker's family is doing.

But the problem is, Texas still threatens doctors with prison, massive civil penalties, the loss of their medical licenses, and private lawsuits if the state later decides an abortion was illegal.