Paxton said in a letter that the order by District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin did not shield doctors from prosecution under all of Texas’s abortion laws, and that the woman, Kate Cox, had not shown she qualified for the medical exception to the state’s abortion ban.
Paxton said in a statement accompanying the letter that Guerra Gamble’s order “will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws.”
The letter was sent to three hospitals where Damla Karsan, the doctor who said she would provide the abortion to Cox, has admitting privileges.
“Fearmongering has been Ken Paxton’s main tactic in enforcing these abortion bans,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Cox, said in a statement. “He is trying to bulldoze the legal system to make sure Kate and pregnant women like her continue to suffer.”
Republicans are selling some delusion they have (or lie if they know better) that there’s a magical moment a doctor can 100% determine whether or not someone will live or die at that exact point if they do or don’t get an abortion. Doctors mitigate risk whenever possible, you can’t wait until things are a total catastrophe and then expect doctors to be able to rescue a patient from it unscathed. It’s just not how medicine works, it’s probabilistic. There’s no way you can write a law about this that will accurately capture all situations, any law limiting the ability of doctors to perform abortions will hurt people in the end. Government needs to keep itself out of the doctors office and let patients make these difficult decisions with the help of their doctor.
“Party of small government”, ridiculous
That’s the problem when they look at the world in black and white. In medicine doctors are dealing with complex systems, using limited information, and leaning on statistics both for the likely diagnosis and the proper treatment.
No wonder they don’t get it.