The Texas Ob-Gyn Exodus

[Nevilledog]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/12/02/the-texas-ob-gyn-exodus

No paywall link
https://archive.li/GVFrA

(Long and detailed article, but this stood out)

*snip*

The staff tried to contain these tensions, but they became harder to ignore with the passage of S.B. 8, which had the controversial provision that encouraged anyone suspecting a person of “aiding or abetting” an abortion to file a lawsuit. In some instances, nurses openly challenged doctors, invoking their right to sue. “People were so hair-triggered to be looking for a crime,” Zoe Kornberg, the resident, said.

Ogburn began meeting with patients behind closed doors and instructing his residents not to offer counselling over the phone. “You never know who’s on the other end listening,” he told them. By then, “nobody felt comfortable talking about anything,” Elissa Serapio, one of the ob-gyns, said.

The list of conditions that could be treated narrowed substantially. If a woman came to the hospital with a lethal fetal anomaly, she had no option but to carry the pregnancy to term. The outcome was traumatic for both the mother and her doctors. “Several people had babies die in their arms,” Ogburn said. Doctors were even reluctant to treat life-threatening complications such as ectopic pregnancies. “It’s the standard of care everywhere in the world,” Ogburn remembers telling an anesthesiologist. “And you’re telling me you can’t treat an ectopic?”

A majority of women didn’t know that the laws had changed, and many of those who did know were not in a position to seek care out of state. A somewhat simpler solution was to cross the border into Mexico and buy abortion pills over the counter. Misoprostol, which causes uterine contractions, often comes in blister packs of twenty-eight. Women would call the hospital to ask if the twenty-eight pills should all be taken at once. The answer was no—four was typically the recommended dosage. But even such vital counsel could now be construed as aiding and abetting.

*snip*

[Lovie777]

1. Abortion banned states....................

exodus, more than doctors.

[Midnight Writer]

2. "A majority of women didn't know that the laws had changed,"- The entire problem in a nutshell

[bikes and bunnies]

4. The ignorance in this country is stunning

Pay attention, dummies!!!

[DeeDeeNY]

5. And it's now too late

[Bobstandard]

6. Who was going to tell them?

The liberal media in Texas? There ain’t no such thing.

[Hekate]

9. Frankly, it is not the fault of the victims

[Hekate]

14. No, the "entire problem" was a 50 year campaign of incremental social change & medical/legal destruction

Imagine my surprise to discover that my contraceptive choices were all “abortifacients” — they were not, but that was the propaganda that developed over time.

Imagine my chagrin at learning that my own mother had “abortions” — and her raised a Roman Catholic. No, that was not the case when she was bleeding out from a miscarriage in 1950; she received standard of care that saved her life instead of leaving me and my brother orphaned as toddlers.

Did you know any of that? Did you know that Dubya’s administration passed something called a “conscience clause” that allowed anyone — even a cashier at a pharmacy — to refuse to fill a woman’s prescription for any damned thing that they disapproved of. Because lady parts, I guess.

Personhood laws came in the guise of protecting pregnant women from harm in everything from beatings to car accidents. Except it wasn’t about protecting women, it was about protecting the contents of their uterus by declaring it a full person. Some of us knew it was going to impact IVF fertilization, and probably outlaw it.

All of this and a lot more went on as preliminaries to the Dobbs decision by the SCOTUS. But most people are just trying to get on with their lives day by day. Poor women were already dying before Dobbs, because of the wholesale closure of women’s clinics in red states. But those are exactly the kind of people we Dems are trying to protect — people who are exhausted just trying to get by.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[oldmanlynn]

7. Nowhere in that article is the message that Republicans are causing this

The messaging is not clear as it should be

[Solly Mack]

8. ...

[Hekate]

10. Solly, can I throw things now?

[Solly Mack]

11. Scream while you're throwing. Helps.

[Hekate]

15. That, too

[peregrinus]

12. Eventually it will be a Republican politician's wife or daughter

On the operating room table.

[Mariana]

18. Probably not.

First sign of trouble with a pregnancy and they'll be on their way to a more woman-friendly state for care. They know the score, and few if any Republican politicians can't afford to do that.

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

13. Texas Republicans KILLED another young women

Texas Republicans KILLED another Texas woman.

Texas Republicans’ draconian backward state law keeps killing Texas women.


https://www.propublica.org/article/porsha-ngumezi-miscarriage-death-texas-abortion-ban

[hatrack]

16. And wait until students stop applying to their medical schools . . .

It's just a matter of time before some ignorant used-car salesman in the legislature gets the screaming yaw-haws at the thought of med students learning about abortion procedures, or residents and research fellows learning about IVF.

More restrictions!!

Once Baylor, UT et. al. bow to the God Squad, how long will they retain their ratings in university rankings? How long will they even be able to meet professional accreditation standards from LCME?

[hatrack]

17. I don't see red easily. I did after these three paragaphs.

That night was Ogburn’s last time on call at D.H.R. He put on scrubs and toured the hospital’s corridors. At the fishbowl, he waved to the residents, who would also be gone the next day. He and his wife had just put their house on the market. He planned to take a yearlong break, then move to San Antonio, where his daughter was doing a residency in orthopedics. He would work at a hospital there part time, caring for women who came to deliver—his version of an easy schedule.

His cell phone rang: it was Kornberg, who was also on call. A patient had come in through the E.R. with severe bleeding and cramping, but, when Kornberg asked a nurse what her cervical check had shown, she got a blank stare. The nurse admitted that she hadn’t examined the woman. Did she feel comfortable doing so? Kornberg asked. The answer was no—so Kornberg took over the patient’s care. Ogburn thanked her warmly. Neither mentioned that in twenty-four hours they would both be gone.

Close to midnight, I caught up with Kornberg. There were three women in the antepartum unit whose amniotic sacs had ruptured before the fetuses were viable, she told me. Their babies had little chance of surviving, and elsewhere the women would have been given the option to terminate their pregnancies. “I can’t do that in this state,” Kornberg said. Instead, the women were all told, “We’re going to give you these medications, to give the baby the best chance, though it may not survive.” The reality, Kornberg added, was even bleaker: “You have a baby that’s probably not going to survive, and we’re going to keep you here. And you’re going to sit alone in this room for three, four months, and maybe you’ll die of sepsis.”