Despite left-wing claims that pro-life laws hinder health care, no Texas doctors prosecuted for ‘medically necessary’ abortions
Not one Texas doctor has been prosecuted for performing one of 132 “medically necessary” induced terminations of pregnancy, according to a report from the Texas Department of Health and Human Services released Jan. 2.
Texas law protects unborn life from six weeks gestation to birth. The ban on abortions prior to six weeks, which took effect in August 2022, allows exceptions to save the life of the mother.
Texas doctors have reported performing 132 abortions to save mothers’ lives since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022. Zero doctors have been prosecuted, sued, or sanctioned for conducting those procedures.
“This Texas law, SB 8, is allowing women to receive emergency care when they need it and receive care for pregnancy complications,” Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told The Daily Signal. “If it wasn’t, then we would see that none were being done for that reason. It shows that the law is working how it’s supposed to work, that the guidance that was provided by the Texas Medical Board is obviously working as well and allowing doctors to feel confident, knowing that they can provide lifesaving care to women.
“The law is working as it’s supposed to because no doctors have been prosecuted for providing this lifesaving care,” Francis continued.
Fifty-one of the procedures took place between January and August 2024, according to the new report, with 48 caused by “both emergency and health” situations and one resulting from the need to “preserve health of woman.”
Left-wing media outlets have argued that fear of prosecution will prevent doctors from giving pregnant women necessary medical care.
ProPublica published a story saying, “The most restrictive state laws, experts predicted, would pit doctors’ fears of prosecution against their patients’ health needs, requiring providers to make sure their patient was inarguably on the brink of death or facing ‘irreversible’ harm when they intervened with procedures like a D&C.” D&C refers to dilation and curettage, a type of surgical abortion.
But the report showing that not one doctor who performed a “medically necessary” induced termination of pregnancy was punished reveals this narrative as fearmongering, meant to scare doctors into opposing abortion bans.
“This report from the state of Texas shows us the importance of states actually collecting data, because now we have something real to work off of,” Francis said, “as opposed to the fearmongering that has happened from stories that have been reported of women supposedly not being able to receive the care that they need.”
Since the Texas abortion ban took effect, elective abortions have dropped to zero. An estimated 9,799 more babies were born in Texas between April and December 2022 as a result of the Texas Heartbeat Act, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Abortion supporters on the Left argue that abortion bans cause women to die. ProPublica published another article saying, “In states with abortion bans” like Texas, “pregnant women have bled to death, succumbed to fatal infections, and wound up in morgues with what medical examiners recorded were ‘products of conception’ still in their bodies.” “Products of conception” is a euphemism for parts of an aborted baby.
Yet Texas doctors reported zero deaths from complications from medically necessary terminations of pregnancy, according to the Texas Health and Human Services report.
“The fact that no women have died because they weren’t able to receive this kind of this kind of care during pregnancy highlights the fact as well that doctors in Texas are not having to wait until a woman is actively dying before they intervene,” Francis said. “Because if they were waiting until that point, then I would venture to say that that we would have seen a death of at least of one woman.”
According to Francis, “medically necessary” abortions are more accurately referred to as “maternal-fetal separation.”
“We’re facing a situation where the pregnancy is actually posing a risk to mom, and so we need to separate mom and baby,” she said. “Of course, if that’s done after the point of viability, then we can take care of both of them. If it’s done before the point of viability, we can still do that in a way that respects the dignity of that child.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]