More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022.

In Texas, where doctors face up to 99 years of prison if convicted of performing an illegal abortion, medical and legal experts say the law is complicating decision-making around emergency pregnancy care.

Although the state law says termination of ectopic pregnancies is not considered abortion, the draconian penalties scare Texas doctors from treating those patients,

  • medgremlin@midwest.social
    0·
    11 months ago

    You’re agreeing that this is a political problem, but you’re still putting the impetus and responsibility on the physician in that situation. If we’re using the trolley problem as an example, the person holding the switch to choose between the 5 people in harm’s way, or actively switching it to one person who currently isn’t in harm’s way…the switch just changes the track direction. That person doesn’t have access to brakes, or a “derail” option. The physician in that situation has to choose between actively leaving one person in harm’s way, or allowing many people to suffer down the line.

    Personally, I don’t have kids, I’m not going to have kids, and it’s just me and my husband. I don’t have a whole family of lives to ruin by getting into legal trouble by running afoul of this, but I don’t blame the physicians who do have a lot to lose. Also, I know enough about the legal system and how medical documentation and coding work to make it tough for the hypothetical prosecutor to pin things on me. Hell, I’m still a student and I’m thinking up ways to play this horrible game they’ve set up, and I think some of my solutions will be pretty clever if I ever have to use them. I will not be sharing any of those ideas, but I have quite a few of them.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      You’re agreeing that this is a political problem, but you’re still putting the impetus and responsibility on the physician in that situation.

      The physician who engages with these laws becomes a political actor. Medical centers don’t have a political commissar sitting around enforcing the party line, they’ve got civilian staff and administration. The choice they make in enacting or ignoring these laws is a political one.

      The physician in that situation has to choose between actively leaving one person in harm’s way, or allowing many people to suffer down the line.

      The physician makes the choice of who to save in the moment, and then private administrators, local law enforcement, and courts decide how many people suffer down the line.

      I will not be sharing any of those ideas, but I have quite a few of them.

      More power to you. But whatever you do (or refuse to do) is as political a decision as anything your bosses and local government enact above you.