How overturning Roe v Wade impacts doctors

 When Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, I didn’t give much thought to its impact on doctors, but the impact is huge, particularly in some states. It used to be that, in dire medical situations, aborting a fetus was standard of care. Now, however, a doctor can land in prison for six years if a prosecutor disagrees with the decision to abort. Doctors must now think like lawyers. Lawyers are now on call to help doctors determine whether a woman would have died without getting an abortion. As one physician said, “We’re no longer basing our judgment on the clinical needs of the woman, we’re basing it on what we understand the legal situation to be.”

 In some places, the fallout looks like this:

•   “Do we wait until the fetus is definitely dead, or is mostly dead good enough?”
•  “How much bleeding is too much?”
•  In Texas, oncologists say they now wait for pregnant women with cancer to get sicker before they initiate treatment. Normally, the standard of care would be to abort the fetus rather than allow treatments that damage it.
•  Forensic nurses who care for sexual assault victims in the emergency room say they would no longer provide morning-after contraception for fear it would be considered an abortion drug.
•  A neonatologist worried about the liability for declining to resuscitate a fetus judged no longer viable.
• In Texas, women had to wait an average of nine days for their conditions to be considered life threatening enough to justify abortion. While they waited, they suffered serious health consequences, such as sepsis and hemorrhaging. One required a hysterectomy.
•  Doctors at one hospital declined to perform an abortion on a woman who arrived with a stillborn fetus.

 You get the idea.

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