Texas Abortion Decision

Updated: Dec 19, 2023

Sorry for the glitch on my last post. I'm working on it. My thoughts on the Texas Supreme Court decision can be read here:

https://www.thehastingscenter.org/texas-supreme-court-offers-roadmap-for-legal-abortion/

The decision is trying to interpret the ambiguos statue that allows exemptions to the almost total ban on abortion. Those exemptions rely on doctors to make reasonable medical judgments about the likelihood that continuing a pregnancy will be harmful to the pregnant woman's health. They stress that only doctors But it seems to be trying hard to interpret a thoroughly ambiguous law. That is all that courts can do.

My slim ray of hope for women in Texas relies on the Court's explicit emphasis on the role of the doctor making a reasonable medical judgment. They write, "Under the law, it is a doctor who must decide that a woman is suffering from a life-threatening condition during a pregnancy, raising the necessity for an abortion to save her life or to prevent impairment of a major bodily function. The law leaves to physicians—not judges—both the discretion and the responsibility to exercise their reasonable medical judgment, given the unique facts and circumstances of each patient."