The Texas Ob-Gyn Exodus [View all]

[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*