Some of us have wrestled with the moral dilemma of abortion as a philosophical exercise. Some of us have faced it directly after the jolt of two pink lines on a pregnancy test. Most Americans, including this editorial board, reject hardline positions because we recognize that the issue of abortion is too complicated for an outright ban or total permission.
Our state legislators would have been wiser to recognize the profound moral complexity presented by abortion and the reality that there are times when women should have access to abortion. But instead, the Legislature passed laws in 2021 banning abortion after six weeks, even in cases of rape, and created a system that allows anyone to report people they suspect have facilitated an abortion
These laws may have arisen from a desire to protect more of the unborn. But they have had predictable morally unsustainable consequences. This includes scientific and anecdotal evidence that medical care for women suffering from miscarriages has worsened.
These are women whose own bodies are rejecting their pregnancies, but Texas laws have sown confusion and fear among medical professionals about how to treat them. This is because medical interventions for miscarriages mirror the treatment of elective abortions.
This extreme outcome is why we need Congress to pass a federal law that limits but does not outright ban abortion, as Western European countries have done.
Women who miscarry, no matter where they live, should have access to basic medical care without having their lives put in more danger because doctors fear being prosecuted or sued for treating them.
When a woman seeks care for a miscarriage, it is common practice for her doctor to present her with the option of expelling the pregnancy on her own or receiving medical care that involves medication or surgery that induces labor.
But now doctors must navigate new restrictions on abortion drugs and a ban on abortion once fetal heart activity is detected. The law allows abortion in “a medical emergency,” but it’s unclear what counts as one.
A woman from the Dallas area said The New York Times that her hospital sent her home bleeding and in pain with instructions to return only if she filled a diaper with blood more than once an hour. Another Central Texas woman told NPR that emergency room doctors reached out to her by texting on their phones because they were afraid of being overheard to help her plan a therapeutic abortion.
A recent study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology looked at the outcomes of 28 pregnant patients in Dallas who sought care at Parkland and UT Southwestern Medical Center after the “heartbeat bill” became law in September These were patients whose water broke, who bled or who experienced other complications before 22 weeks, before fetal viability.
Because fetal heart activity was detected in all cases, patients had to wait an average of nine days until there was an “immediate threat” to their lives to receive medical intervention. All but one of the 28 patients lost their fetus or infant. The newborn still alive at the end of the study was in intensive care with respiratory failure, a brain injury and a heart defect.
The study also found that waiting resulted in 57% of patients having serious health complications.
Continuing as Texas is now will only hurt the cause of abortion opponents and leave well-intentioned health care providers in a difficult position. The authors of the law may not have intended for women with miscarriages and their doctors to be caught in the middle, but that is what is happening. What they have done is prolong the suffering of women going through one of the most harrowing experiences of their lives.
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