Medical boards fail to reassure doctors in Texas
Important governing body there is appointed by governor
The fear of being in a medical board’s crosshairs has many OB/GYNs reluctant to perform and provide necessary abortions and reproductive care.
The Kate Cox case confirmed fears among many clinicians: that the state of Texas would not respect doctors’ expert medical opinions and that they could and would be prosecuted if they provided that care for their patients.
Molly Meegan, JD, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, responded to Repro Rights Now when asked about the case.
“There has also been a chilling effect on patients, and this case opened many people’s eyes to the fact that essential health care is not available in Texas, even if your health is at risk.”
Cox, a 31-year-old Texan, received news last year that her baby wouldn’t be able to survive past a few days after birth. She had heard that 20 other women had challenged the abortion ban in court. Cox was the first woman to sue for an abortion while actively pregnant, according to reporting done by the Guardian.
The results have had a devastating effect on care in Texas. OB-GYNs provide care to patients without assurance that their medical judgment will be respected or that they will be safe from criminal prosecution. In some states with bans, clinicians can lose their medical licenses, face steep fines, and even jail time if someone questions their decision. As a result, these providers have left states with bans or, in some cases, retired early.
“The clinicians who are staying are often forced to send their patients out of state for necessary care,” Meegan said. “Those decisions need to be left to the judgment of the doctors who have trained for decades to provide that care to their patients.”
Medical board selection varies by state. In some, like Texas, the governor appoints the medical board. Since every governor of the state since Ann Richards has been a Republican, that means that boards like that are shaped by Republican sensibilities on abortion.
The same has also been true of the education board there, which surprisingly hasn’t been a point of focus as much for Democrats despite their outsized influence on what books they select to go into curriculums. The voters elect them. So it’s within the realm of possibilities that Democrats could capture it. Because they are such a large customer of textbooks, what they dictate ends up being what goes into curriculums nationwide. The people who’ve held those seats have rejected climate change science. They don’t support critical race theory or putting more black history in schools. That’s tangential, but people who want to reform education to be more inclusive on issues of race and gender should target those states politically.
But back to abortion. Meegan said that care should be individualized and permit flexibility to the doctor to deal with unexpected complications.
“To ask clinicians to stop helping their patient and consult an attorney or hospital board in the middle of providing that care is not functional and would result in delays in care that could be severe and irreversible,” Meegan said. “That is not how doctors train to practice medicine, and it is not how medicine should be practiced.”