Texas Supreme Court: doctors must work under sword of Damocles

The Texas Supreme Court has vacated the lower court ruling seeking to protect a doctor performing a medically necessary abortion:

Order here: https://t.co/SjoMat0ozm https://t.co/RllpyGAqjG— Leah Litman (@LeahLitman) December 11, 2023

This is the key graf:

Of course what goes unstated is that the law then authorizes state officials to arrest, prosecute, and/or take the licenses of doctors who exercise their medical judgment if they disagree with it, making the framing here disingenuous in the extreme. Creating a chilling effect by refusing to make clear under what circumstances abortions can be performed is exactly what the law seeks to do, and refusing to offer further clarity ex ante is critical to its function.

…Paul, in comments: “Shorter Texas Supreme Court: Doctors have nothing to worry about as long as they can read our minds.”