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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Texas Supreme Court decision here:
https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1457645/230994pc.pdf[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

Is there data reflecting an exit of OB-GYN doctors from Texas and the likes? [/quote]
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 [/quote]
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.[/quote]

+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.  [b]A lawyer has a duty to tell the hospital not to abort because the harm isn’t imminent.[/b]  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. [/quote]

Hopefully,[b] the local, blue DA, would charge everyone involved with manslaughter if they made that decisio[/b]n. 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. [/quote]

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

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 [/quote]

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

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?[/quote]

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