When Men Were Men And Women Were Chattel

9 wise men turn back the clock to the early 19th century:

“No one disputes that Ms. Cox’s pregnancy has been extremely complicated. Any parents would be devastated to learn of their unborn child’s trisomy 18 diagnosis,” the justices wrote. “Some difficulties in pregnancy, however, even serious ones, do not pose the heightened risks to the mother the exception encompasses.”

"Some difficulties." That could have been this woman’s epitaph. According to the Texas Court, that’s what it has to be.

Meanwhile, though, Cox’s condition was deteriorating, and she was in and out of the emergency room, according to her lawyers.

The Texas Supreme Court also heard arguments in late November in Zurawski v. Texas, in which 20 women allege they were denied medical care for their complicated pregnancies as a result of the state’s abortion laws. In both suits, the Center for Reproductive Rights has argued that doctors must be allowed to exercise their medical judgement and perform abortions when their “good faith belief” is that the procedure is necessary. The law says doctors must instead exercise “reasonable medical judgment,” which lawyers for the Center has argued is a vague standard that pushes doctors to wait until a patient is close to death before acting. 

In Monday’s ruling, the justices say the law does not “ask the doctor to wait until the mother is within an inch of death or her bodily impairment is fully manifest or practically irreversible. The exception does not mandate that a doctor in a true emergency await consultation with other doctors who may not be available. Rather, the exception is predicated on a doctor’s acting within the zone of reasonable medical judgment, which is what doctors do every day.” 

The ruling also called on the Texas Medical Board to offer more guidance to physicians, reminding the agency that it can “assess various hypothetical circumstances, provide best practices, identify red lines, and the like” as it has done for COVID-19 protocols and similar circumstances.

In a direct and unethical challenge to a valid court order Ken Paxton threatened criminal action against three hospitals in Houston if they performed this abortion. I’m not sure what guidance the Texas Medical Board can offer that would keep a zealous DA from bringing criminal charges and challenging a doctor’s prediction of impending death. Whether a doctor acted within the “zone of reasonable medical judgment” would be decided in a criminal trial, which is far beyond the reach of a malpractice suit. But the Texas Supreme Court doesn’t hear criminal cases, so what do they care?

The law is a travesty and the Texas Supreme Court a pack of hyenas too cowardly to attack, but happy to feast on the kill, all the while proclaiming they had nothing to do with it.