Texas judge grants woman’s request for abortion despite state ban

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Texas Supreme Court decision here:
https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1457645/230994pc.pdf

The finding itself is self-contradictory. Says a doctor shouldn't need to consult a court for permission to perform an abortion they deem medically necessary in their judgement while simultaneously denying an abortion the doctor deemed medically necessary.

I assume that’s deliberate. They don’t want to clog up the courts with cases — so they’ll leave it up to each doctor’s discretion. Of course there will not be specific medical guidelines provided to the physicians, just less than clear legal ones. That way they can fine, arrest, harass, yank the licenses from the physicians AFTER they’ve performed abortions. Since there are no explicit guidelines, it will be quite easy for the non-medical people who will get to decide such things to deem anything they want to as being not “medically necessary” — especially if the patient survives the procedure. Of course if the patient doesn’t survive, then that’s a whole different set of potential fines and law suits. Either way, the OB-Gyns will be screwed. So many will move to other states, thus reducing the availability of medical professionals available to provide abortions. Of course it also reduces the number of professionals available to provide medical care for women’s needs. Oh well. I’m sure they thought this through.

Is there data reflecting an exit of OB-GYN doctors from Texas and the likes?

There is. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maternity-care-deserts-pregnancy-hospital-closures-provider-shortages/

I think there was also a thread (Idaho may have been in the thread title?) that tracked a few cases as the last remaining OB practices left some counties across the country. Rural areas have suffered for care for decades, but the forced birther laws aren’t just anti-women and antithetical to life, they’re anti-medicine.

Here’s an article about why some stay and some leave.
https://apnews.com/article/dobbs-anniversary-roe-v-wade-abortion-obgyn-699263284cced4bd421bc83207678816

Yes, multiple hospitals in states with bans have chosen to stop all OBGyn services. The big Roe struck down thread has been tracking all of these types of developments over the last year and a half and there are lots of links in there.

+1 hospitals also have an enormous amount of potential liability if they guess wrong on providing abortion. Wait too long and it’s a huge malpractice case. Abort too soon and fines and jail for medical personnel. And it’s not easy or cheap to have in house lawyers meeting to make determinations on pregnancy care while a woman is bleeding out in the ER. Or when future harm is unclear because no one except Ken Paxton has a crystal ball. It is so much easier and less risky to get out of the baby business.

Side note, hospital lawyers have an ethical duty to protect hospitals, their clients and not to preserve the health or life of women. Thus, ethically, they have to say no if there is any doubt. Lawyers making decisions on whether a woman is close enough to death to get an abortion is a terrible idea. Especially when projecting possible future harm, as with Kate Cox, whose life or fertility may be in jeopardy, or when someone in their first trimester has stage 1 or 2 breast cancer. Immediate treatment (chemo, surgery, radiation) is the standard of care, but would kill the fetus. But the cancer was caught early (yeah! Early detection saves lives— except in red states) but, it isn’t so advanced the woman’s life is threatened today and waiting until childbirth to get treatment may or may not that may or may not kill the woman. Depends on how far the cancer spreads while the woman is not treated. A lawyer has a duty to tell the hospital not to abort because the harm isn’t imminent. And as the Kate Cox written decision makes clear, speculative future harm is not enough to allow a woman to decide whether to delay treatment or abort. Abortion to begin treatment six months earlier isn’t an option. Better hope you aren’t a woman diagnosed with stage 1-2 cancer at 8 weeks in TX.

These are not situations hospitals want to be in. And I’m a lawyer and can assure you— no one wants me and my peers making complex decisions on medical care. Easier and safer just to close the maternity ward.

Hopefully, the local, blue DA, would charge everyone involved with manslaughter if they made that decision. The problem is that right now doctors have a situation where if they err on one side they ace relatively light consequences- at most a malpractice suit that is handled by insurance. If they err on the other side, they risk jail. A local DA charging doctors, or the whole ethics committee with a felony that results in jail time when they are too cautious and a woman dies changes the calculus for the hospital.

Yeah, I am not a lawyer but that sounds like fantasy, I think the legal barriers to such charges would be very large.

Woman presents at the hospital in need of an abortion. Doctors delay to CYA, woman dies of sepsis. Assuming there is a debate in the committee, it would be hard for them to argue they didn't know the risk of waiting. Texas law says that the abortion in that circumstance would be legal. It would be enough to at least arrest them

You have a civil malpractice suit here. Not a criminal one. Reckless endangerment is very hard to prove in this setting.

Maybe so. But if you’re a doctor, why put yourself through that grief if you can practice medicine in a blue state and completely avoid it altogether?

I think there will be plenty of doctors who consider themselves anti-choice willing to work in Texas, Florida, etc.

[Anonymous]

And God help those women who have only those doctors to turn to for care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Texas Supreme Court decision here:
https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1457645/230994pc.pdf

The finding itself is self-contradictory. Says a doctor shouldn't need to consult a court for permission to perform an abortion they deem medically necessary in their judgement while simultaneously denying an abortion the doctor deemed medically necessary.

I assume that’s deliberate. They don’t want to clog up the courts with cases — so they’ll leave it up to each doctor’s discretion. Of course there will not be specific medical guidelines provided to the physicians, just less than clear legal ones. That way they can fine, arrest, harass, yank the licenses from the physicians AFTER they’ve performed abortions. Since there are no explicit guidelines, it will be quite easy for the non-medical people who will get to decide such things to deem anything they want to as being not “medically necessary” — especially if the patient survives the procedure. Of course if the patient doesn’t survive, then that’s a whole different set of potential fines and law suits. Either way, the OB-Gyns will be screwed. So many will move to other states, thus reducing the availability of medical professionals available to provide abortions. Of course it also reduces the number of professionals available to provide medical care for women’s needs. Oh well. I’m sure they thought this through.

Is there data reflecting an exit of OB-GYN doctors from Texas and the likes?

There is. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maternity-care-deserts-pregnancy-hospital-closures-provider-shortages/

I think there was also a thread (Idaho may have been in the thread title?) that tracked a few cases as the last remaining OB practices left some counties across the country. Rural areas have suffered for care for decades, but the forced birther laws aren’t just anti-women and antithetical to life, they’re anti-medicine.

Here’s an article about why some stay and some leave.
https://apnews.com/article/dobbs-anniversary-roe-v-wade-abortion-obgyn-699263284cced4bd421bc83207678816

Yes, multiple hospitals in states with bans have chosen to stop all OBGyn services. The big Roe struck down thread has been tracking all of these types of developments over the last year and a half and there are lots of links in there.

+1 hospitals also have an enormous amount of potential liability if they guess wrong on providing abortion. Wait too long and it’s a huge malpractice case. Abort too soon and fines and jail for medical personnel. And it’s not easy or cheap to have in house lawyers meeting to make determinations on pregnancy care while a woman is bleeding out in the ER. Or when future harm is unclear because no one except Ken Paxton has a crystal ball. It is so much easier and less risky to get out of the baby business.

Side note, hospital lawyers have an ethical duty to protect hospitals, their clients and not to preserve the health or life of women. Thus, ethically, they have to say no if there is any doubt. Lawyers making decisions on whether a woman is close enough to death to get an abortion is a terrible idea. Especially when projecting possible future harm, as with Kate Cox, whose life or fertility may be in jeopardy, or when someone in their first trimester has stage 1 or 2 breast cancer. Immediate treatment (chemo, surgery, radiation) is the standard of care, but would kill the fetus. But the cancer was caught early (yeah! Early detection saves lives— except in red states) but, it isn’t so advanced the woman’s life is threatened today and waiting until childbirth to get treatment may or may not that may or may not kill the woman. Depends on how far the cancer spreads while the woman is not treated. A lawyer has a duty to tell the hospital not to abort because the harm isn’t imminent. And as the Kate Cox written decision makes clear, speculative future harm is not enough to allow a woman to decide whether to delay treatment or abort. Abortion to begin treatment six months earlier isn’t an option. Better hope you aren’t a woman diagnosed with stage 1-2 cancer at 8 weeks in TX.

These are not situations hospitals want to be in. And I’m a lawyer and can assure you— no one wants me and my peers making complex decisions on medical care. Easier and safer just to close the maternity ward.

Hopefully, the local, blue DA, would charge everyone involved with manslaughter if they made that decision. The problem is that right now doctors have a situation where if they err on one side they ace relatively light consequences- at most a malpractice suit that is handled by insurance. If they err on the other side, they risk jail. A local DA charging doctors, or the whole ethics committee with a felony that results in jail time when they are too cautious and a woman dies changes the calculus for the hospital.

Yeah, I am not a lawyer but that sounds like fantasy, I think the legal barriers to such charges would be very large.

Woman presents at the hospital in need of an abortion. Doctors delay to CYA, woman dies of sepsis. Assuming there is a debate in the committee, it would be hard for them to argue they didn't know the risk of waiting. Texas law says that the abortion in that circumstance would be legal. It would be enough to at least arrest them

You have a civil malpractice suit here. Not a criminal one. Reckless endangerment is very hard to prove in this setting.

Maybe so. But if you’re a doctor, why put yourself through that grief if you can practice medicine in a blue state and completely avoid it altogether?

I think there will be plenty of doctors who consider themselves anti-choice willing to work in Texas, Florida, etc.

There is a shortage of doctors as is that's expected to get dramatically worse. And how many doctors do you think there are that consider themselves anti-medicine (i.e., anti-choice)? Is there anything backing this other than "I think..."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And God help those women who have only those doctors to turn to for care

+1
Not doctors at all.

[Anonymous]

I weep for all these women. A woman's right to choose is my only issue for 2024 election. May every person who is anti choice rot in Hell!

https://abcnews.go.com/US/fighting-lives-women-impact-abortion-restrictions-post-roe/story?id=105563174

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I weep for all these women. A woman's right to choose is my only issue for 2024 election. May every person who is anti choice rot in Hell!

https://abcnews.go.com/US/fighting-lives-women-impact-abortion-restrictions-post-roe/story?id=105563174

Good for ABC and Hulu for doing this. Americans need to hear more of these stories AND we need to make sure that EVERYONE KNOWS why Roe is no more, because of Donald Trump's SCOTUS picks. This isn't just a bad AG here, or bad legislature there. This has been a systemic attempt to roll back women's rights which culminated in the appointment of three justices that we all knew would over turn Roe. Trump's justices overturned Roe WITH NO PLAN IN PLACE, just like Trump's repeal of ACA.

These stories won't stop. But it's up to US, those who are enraged and have agency, to make sure people know the stakes of the next election. We MUST put our policy issues aside and vote for Democrats (unless anti-choice) up and down ballot. Our lives, our daughters, and granddaughters lives are on the line. There is no issue more important.

[Anonymous]

What really gets me is when I see an influencer who has a very large following openly discuss their miscarriage and D and C but are very openly anti choice.... It's like they don't even understand that that option will not be available for many women and they now have to carry unviable fetuses that are literally rotting in their wombs or they have to leave the state.... These conservative women who have such a large following could do so much good in the world if they just talked about reality instead of glossing over their miscarriage while chastising the choice, many other women have to make every single day that is heartwrenching.

[Anonymous]

What if a child needed a heart transplant or another organ immediately after birth..... Are the courts prepared for that father to give up his organs to keep that child alive..... Because I really hope that is the avenue we are going down here.... Hey Jim, sorry about your child here. They need a liver and kidney transplant in order to survive....... You're a match so we're going to need to take yours now. Thanks!.


Hey Paul, little Sally needs a heart transplant so we're going to go ahead and need to take yours okay?.... You know it's all about saving a life right?.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What really gets me is when I see an influencer who has a very large following openly discuss their miscarriage and D and C but are very openly anti choice.... It's like they don't even understand that that option will not be available for many women and they now have to carry unviable fetuses that are literally rotting in their wombs or they have to leave the state.... These conservative women who have such a large following could do so much good in the world if they just talked about reality instead of glossing over their miscarriage while chastising the choice, many other women have to make every single day that is heartwrenching.

There is no heart so hard as that of a conservative.

[Anonymous]

Susan Collins condemned the Texas Supreme Court. The same Susan Collins who voted to confirm Trump's three pro life SC justices!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Susan Collins condemned the Texas Supreme Court. The same Susan Collins who voted to confirm Trump's three forced birth SC justices!

There’s nothing pro life about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What really gets me is when I see an influencer who has a very large following openly discuss their miscarriage and D and C but are very openly anti choice.... It's like they don't even understand that that option will not be available for many women and they now have to carry unviable fetuses that are literally rotting in their wombs or they have to leave the state.... These conservative women who have such a large following could do so much good in the world if they just talked about reality instead of glossing over their miscarriage while chastising the choice, many other women have to make every single day that is heartwrenching.

+1

“I was just thinking last night that one of the main reasons we have so many abortion bans is because men don't understand pregnancy.

Dozens of women are suing in Texas in the Zurwaski case because men don't understand it's not healthy to keep a dying fetus in your f—ing body.

It's not normal to go to an emergency room twice in one week complaining of violent cramping and to have the doctor send you home because the state has told them they can't provide the healthcare you need. That's what happened to Kate Cox.

Or, as Texas is arguing, the state hasn't prevented doctors from providing medical care. It's the doctors' fault for not using their own judgment.

But using their own judgment can land them in jail and have them stripped of their medical license.”
- Imani Gandy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Susan Collins condemned the Texas Supreme Court. The same Susan Collins who voted to confirm Trump's three pro life SC justices!

Too little too late, Collins. This is on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What really gets me is when I see an influencer who has a very large following openly discuss their miscarriage and D and C but are very openly anti choice.... It's like they don't even understand that that option will not be available for many women and they now have to carry unviable fetuses that are literally rotting in their wombs or they have to leave the state.... These conservative women who have such a large following could do so much good in the world if they just talked about reality instead of glossing over their miscarriage while chastising the choice, many other women have to make every single day that is heartwrenching.

+1

“I was just thinking last night that one of the main reasons we have so many abortion bans is because men don't understand pregnancy.

Dozens of women are suing in Texas in the Zurwaski case because men don't understand it's not healthy to keep a dying fetus in your f—ing body.

It's not normal to go to an emergency room twice in one week complaining of violent cramping and to have the doctor send you home because the state has told them they can't provide the healthcare you need. That's what happened to Kate Cox.

Or, as Texas is arguing, the state hasn't prevented doctors from providing medical care. It's the doctors' fault for not using their own judgment.

But using their own judgment can land them in jail and have them stripped of their medical license.”
- Imani Gandy

That and the vast numbers of forced birthers who think theirs is the only moral abortion, and they’ve certainly had them. Men don’t understand pregnancies, but so many women and men who have had or have personally benefited from an abortion keep voting forced birth! It’s astonishing!

[Anonymous]

where are the forced birthers.. I mean pro-lifers on this thread? What say you? What if this was you, your wife, your sister?