Dangerous Medicine
BY THE TIME A YOUNG MOTHER-TO-BE GOT TO Dr. Tony Ogburn one night in July, the prognosis for the baby was grim.
The pregnant woman had come in through the obstetric emergency room at DHR Health, a busy medical center in Edinburg, Texas, complaining of severe cramping and bleeding. Clinicians quickly determined she was in labor. The 4-month-old fetus was not nearly developed enough to survive outside the womb, but it had already come partway through the cervix into the birth canal. If the mother didn’t complete this miscarriage soon, he and his team concluded, she would suffer a major hemorrhage, placing her life in jeopardy.
In his 30 years as a practicing OB-GYN, Dr. Ogburn, an affable 63-year-old with thick white hair, wouldn’t have thought twice about operating immediately. Instead, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, he and two colleagues huddled to discuss a thorny question. The baby still had a heartbeat. Was the procedure legal?
In Texas and another 22 states that have outlawed abortion or expect to soon, doctors are finding themselves in situations that are equally ambiguous and fraught. Early reports from doctors on the front lines suggest that confusion over the legality of medical procedures is widespread among OB-GYNs, but it doesn’t end there. Clinicians who may have to perform procedures on pregnant women are wondering about their legal liability, too. The uncertainty extends to pharmacies, classrooms and the social media pages of medical professionals, many of whom worry what they are legally allowed to say or post. Even if some of that confusion eventually subsides, it puts many pregnant women in immediate peril.
