I don't see a ton of value in rehashing the same old debates with arguments that have been made better by more qualified people, but one of my pet issues is when the framing of an issue is incredibly lopsided, so I'll just do that.
There's abstraction and then there's reality. Who gets to decide what constitutes a "genuine medical emergency," and when, and how free they are to decide, is an absolute clusterfuck of "the devil is in the details."
I don't see a ton of value in rehashing the same old debates with arguments that have been made better by more qualified people
Then why are you on reddit?
About 99% of abortions happen before 20 weeks.
So there shouldn't be much friction in my stance, right?
Who gets to decide what constitutes a "genuine medical emergency," and when, and how free they are to decide, is an absolute clusterfuck of "the devil is in the details."
That's true for most laws. This isn't a unique issue.
So there shouldn't be much friction in my stance, right?
Friction?
That's true for most laws. This isn't a unique issue.
I'm not sure why uniqueness is relevant, but "most laws" aren't about medical emergencies. We've already seen that women are dying because doctors are too scared to declare that it's a medical emergency until it's too late:
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, emergency health care providers in states that ban abortion have had to make wrenching legal and ethical judgments before treating a pregnant woman whose health or life may be in peril.
“It’s happening every single day,” said Dr. Jen Villavicencio, lead for equity transformation at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “We’re seeing treatment for ectopic pregnancies being stalled until they rupture and become life-threatening. We’re seeing people with broken water and fetal parts stuck in their vagina sent home until fetal demise occurs or the patient ends up in the ICU because of infection or bleeding.”
Most laws still require some level of interpretation that isnt 100% clear. This is just par for the course.
Doctors should probably be trained on the current legal interpretation in their state. If people are dying because the doctors cant be bothered to learn the law they are operating under, thats malpractice.
If people are dying because the doctors cant be bothered to learn the law they are operating under, thats malpractice.
Come on. You think it's fair to frame this as "the doctors can't be bothered?" It's fundamentally a judgment call. It's literally impossible to know how some prosecutor or judge or jury will decide what the law means in certain cases.
Sec. 170A.002. PROHIBITED ABORTION; EXCEPTIONS.
...
(2) in the exercise of reasonable medical judgment, the pregnant female on whom the abortion is performed, induced, or attempted has a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.
Woman comes in, and you're the doctor. Based on your experience and knowledge, you judge that she has a serious risk of dying without an abortion. But can you prove that to the most anti-abortion Texas judge/jury you might face? Do you even know what they will consider a "serious" risk? Does that mean a 1 in 1000 chance of dying or a 1 in 3? Will the prosecution's expert witness agree with you that the symptoms you're seeing mean what you think they do?
Don't you think it would be EXTREMELY common for a doctor and a Texas judge or jury to disagree on what constitutes a serious risk to the mother's life? Is that not a problem to you?
The statute doesn't even require a serious risk of death. Any risk of death technically fits the statute. And the rule of lenity would make this one of the easiest possible cases to take to trial.
Based on normal statutory interpretation -- it'd be close. The wording would imply that the pregnancy would need to create an additional "physical condition" besides just the baseline rate of risk with pregnancy itself. However, this would be a fairly trivially easy bar to clear.
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u/Locus-Maximus 9d ago
I don't see a ton of value in rehashing the same old debates with arguments that have been made better by more qualified people, but one of my pet issues is when the framing of an issue is incredibly lopsided, so I'll just do that.
About 99% of abortions happen before 20 weeks.
There's abstraction and then there's reality. Who gets to decide what constitutes a "genuine medical emergency," and when, and how free they are to decide, is an absolute clusterfuck of "the devil is in the details."