A JUDGE has given a Texas woman permission to have an abortion in the first major challenge to a state ban on abortion brought in last year.

Over a dozen US states have banned abortions since the US Supreme Court overturned 1973’s Roe v Wade judgement last year, ending abortion access as a federal right.

Texas’s ban is among the country’s strictest, with a potential life sentence for doctors who carry out abortions.

State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, an elected Democrat, granted a temporary order on Thursday allowing 31-year-old Kate Cox to abort a foetus with a fatal diagnosis.

Centre for Reproductive Rights lawyer Marc Hearron said the ruling only applied to Ms Cox and was not likely to be a “new normal.

“I don’t think you can expect to see now hundreds of cases being filed on behalf of patients.”

Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton, a Republican, did not say if the state would appeal but warned that any doctor performing the abortion might still face legal consequences.