A Texas woman on Tuesday asked a court to allow her to have an abortion despite the state’s near-total ban on the procedure, saying her fetus was likely non-viable and that continuing the pregnancy would endanger her health, Reuters reported.

Protest against Texas anti-abortion lawPhoto: AFP/Getty Images/Profimedia

In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit filed in Travis County, Texas, against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 20-week-pregnant Kate Cox sought a temporary restraining order that would have allowed a doctor to perform an abortion without prosecution. She urged the court to make a decision “quickly”.

Cox said her fetus was recently diagnosed with a genetic abnormality called trisomy 18, which does not usually result in a viable pregnancy.

According to the lawsuit, Cox’s doctors told her that if she was born alive, her baby would likely live only a few days.

In the lawsuit, Cox said that because she had two previous C-sections, she would have to have a third if she continued the pregnancy, which could jeopardize her ability to have more children, the complaint said.

“However, due to the abortion ban in Texas, Ms. Cox’s doctors told her her ‘hands were tied’ and that she would have to wait for the baby to die inside her or carry the pregnancy to term, after which she would have to have a third C-section to see as her child suffers to death,” the lawsuit states.

Texas’ ban on abortion includes only one exception, to save the life of the mother or to prevent significant impairment of essential bodily functions.

Cox’s lawsuit asks the court to rule that the abortion she wants falls under that exception and that enforcing the ban against her under those circumstances would violate the state constitution.

Cox’s husband, Justin Cox, and Damla Karsan, an obstetrician-gynecologist who says she would have performed abortions if not for the ban, are also plaintiffs.

Karsan is also one of 22 plaintiffs in a separate lawsuit seeking a broader injunction to protect Texas women’s right to abortions that their doctors deem medically necessary, where a majority of the state’s highest court heard arguments last week.

The court did not issue a decision on this case.