Posted on Aug 21, 2023
For one Texas doctor, abortion bans are personal and professional
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https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/21/ [login to see] /texas-pregnant-doctor-abortion-bans
On a recent Friday night, as her husband made dinner at the family's home in Dallas and her toddlers ran around underfoot, Dr. Austin Dennard saw an email come in on her phone.
The judge who heard her testify last month in an Austin courtroom about Texas's abortion laws had reached a decision. Dennard is among 13 women who sued the state arguing that the current abortion bans are unclear when it comes to pregnancy complications. She is also an OB-GYN, and she's nearing the end of a healthy pregnancy – she was visibly pregnant while on the stand.
On a recent Friday night, as her husband made dinner at the family's home in Dallas and her toddlers ran around underfoot, Dr. Austin Dennard saw an email come in on her phone.
The judge who heard her testify last month in an Austin courtroom about Texas's abortion laws had reached a decision. Dennard is among 13 women who sued the state arguing that the current abortion bans are unclear when it comes to pregnancy complications. She is also an OB-GYN, and she's nearing the end of a healthy pregnancy – she was visibly pregnant while on the stand.
For one Texas doctor, abortion bans are personal and professional
Posted from npr.org
State of Texas
Abortion
Medical
Health
Pregnancy
Posted 8 mo ago
Responses: 2
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Reading a victory through tears, with Google
Last summer, she learned that she was carrying a fetus with anencephaly — a fatal condition in which the skull and brain do not develop fully. She traveled to the east coast for an abortion.
When she read the opinion, she thought, "I would not have had to go out of state if I had [the anencephaly] diagnosis right now."
Mangrum's ruling specifies that doctors cannot be charged for providing abortions when the fetus is unlikely to survive after birth. Texas abortion bans do not have an explicit exception for fatal fetal conditions.
"My husband came over and gave me a big hug and he was crying. And it just – it felt really good. It felt like a victory that you so wanted but never really thought you were going to have to fight for," Dennard says. "I was reading it through tears, and there's all this lawyer jargon in it. And so we have Google up, and I'm Googling different terms and we're trying to really understand the whole thing."
Dennard also thought about her OB-GYN patients, and the possibility of speaking to them openly when they face complications. She says it felt validating for a person in power to listen to all of their stories and conclude the law needed to change."...
..."Reading a victory through tears, with Google
Last summer, she learned that she was carrying a fetus with anencephaly — a fatal condition in which the skull and brain do not develop fully. She traveled to the east coast for an abortion.
When she read the opinion, she thought, "I would not have had to go out of state if I had [the anencephaly] diagnosis right now."
Mangrum's ruling specifies that doctors cannot be charged for providing abortions when the fetus is unlikely to survive after birth. Texas abortion bans do not have an explicit exception for fatal fetal conditions.
"My husband came over and gave me a big hug and he was crying. And it just – it felt really good. It felt like a victory that you so wanted but never really thought you were going to have to fight for," Dennard says. "I was reading it through tears, and there's all this lawyer jargon in it. And so we have Google up, and I'm Googling different terms and we're trying to really understand the whole thing."
Dennard also thought about her OB-GYN patients, and the possibility of speaking to them openly when they face complications. She says it felt validating for a person in power to listen to all of their stories and conclude the law needed to change."...
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