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The second and third hospital were the same hospital, just at different time. I agree that nothing in the case itself indicates that the law played a factor in her lack of treatment and subsequent demise, but I did notice this tidbit from the end of the article:
Under the guise of tort reform, the Texas Legislature passed the Texas Medical Liability Act which, among other things, capped noneconomic damages at $250,000 and imposed a much stricter standard on plaintiffs in cases involving emergency room treatment. In this light, the hospital's actions look completely rational. If they admit a pregnant woman with sepsis they run the risk that she may need an abortion and then they face the dilemma of either exposing themselves to criminal liability on the one hand and a malpractice suit on the other. As it says in the article, she wasn't diagnosed with sepsis, it was merely suspected that she had sepsis. Either way, if they send her home with antibiotics they can just avoid the whole hornet's nest and not have to worry about a malpractice suit. This is all merely speculation but it makes sense in context: She comes to the ER, they suspect she's septic, they check the fetal heartbeat, they know what they have to do but they can't do it, they know that if they admit her for further observation their liability increases exponentially, so they send her home. When she comes back a few hours later, they don't find a heartbeat and still know what they have to do but need a sonogram so they can meet documentation standards and they fuck that up, which probably isn't related to any liability concerns but it's unclear if the two hour delay would have made any difference. Either way, all that happened before she was admitted, and there's no indication that any malpractice took place while she was in the ICU, so they're in the clear. They avoided dealing with the law and they avoided a malpractice suit, so it's a win-win. The only loser is the dead woman.
They can say whatever they want to in dicta, but the actual opinion tells a different story. A physician telling a patient that isn't magic language that shields him from criminal liability. Not only that, but a physician with a good-faith belief that an abortion is necessary isn't shielded from liability. you can point to whatever snippets of language you want to, but the court made it crystal clear that it's an objective test based on what a reasonable physician would have done. And, as I said in my first post, that means it's a question of fact for a jury and you're expert will battle it out with their expert, and you hope they believe your expert. And if you lose, the consequences are similar to those of being convicted of non-capital murder. Unless there's a well-recognized, bright line exception, I don't understand how you can argue with a straight fact that doctors should get within 200 miles of a case like that. Would you commit a crime that came with serious jail time if your boss thought you'd have a good defense?
This is the reasoning of a cartoon villain from an anti-capitalist morality play.
You said the Supreme Court declined to offer any further guidance. They were, in fact, pretty clear. That statement, whether you characterize it as "dicta" or not, was part of the actual opinion.
Either the offered standard -- good-faith belief -- isn't reviewable, in which it case it creates a liar's exception to the abortion law. Or it is reviewable, in which case there's the same issue as with the actual reasonable physician standard. Reasonable professional judgement is demanded of doctors (and other licensed professionals) all the time; it comes with the territory.
And your implication that woke doctors are intentionally letting pregnant women die so they can make a political point about a law they don't like is somehow more plausible?
And in medicine, getting sued for malpractice also comes with the territory, especially OB/GYN. Over 60% of this population of doctors has been accused, at some point in their career, of not exercising reasonable judgment. And the vast majority of these cases settle, because the attorneys damn well know that no matter how good you think your argument is the person at the other table thinks their argument is pretty good too, and there's no way of knowing what the jury is going to do. Luckily, in malpractice, the stakes aren't that high. Your carrier will pay out a settlement and your rates will go up, but you won't be doing any jail time, and it's unlikely you'd even lose your job. And yet doctors still provide all kinds of treatment and testing they deem unnecessary because they know the plaintiff's expert is going to say they should have done it. No doctor is going to take a risk where the only thing standing between him and a 99 year prison sentence is convincing 12 people who know nothing about medicine that his actions are "reasonable".
Whichever one is more plausible, they're both villainous.
Then every single one of them should find a new profession. Because they face the possibility of murder charges any time they make a decision in which the patient dies. For instance, William Husel Doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.
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