Texas is about to make pregnancy even more dangerous

To comprehend just how dangerous it now is to become pregnant in the state of Texas, a few basic facts need to be understood. 

As a result of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and thanks to the state’s Republican legislature, abortion is banned in Texas. The only narrow exceptions to that ban are to save the life or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function” of a pregnant patient. Accordingly, doctors need to be extraordinarily careful to determine whether the patient will likely or probably die if an abortion is not performed.

If they’re wrong, then the abortion is illegal, subjecting the doctor to criminal penalties of up to 99 years in prison, a $100,000 fine, and the loss of their medical license. Even if the fetus itself has a life-threatening, potentially fatal abnormality, Texas law does not allow an abortion to be performed unless the pregnant person will also likely die, a restriction that was made vividly clear in the highly publicized case of Kate Cox, who was refused treatment after four ER visits even though continuing her pregnancy demonstrably jeopardized her own health and may have ended her hopes to become pregnant again.

So pregnancy itself—any pregnancy—is now a potentially harrowing, even terrifying experience for patients in Texas. But it’s equally terrifying for the doctors who treat them, just in a different way.

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