YOUR MESS

Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas. Ohhhh. I get it. Every day we’re reading some new take on Texas’s barbaric incoherent abortion laws. And every day it becomes more apparent there are several things at play, at least in my interpretation. 1. Doctors are being chastised by the guys who wrote the unclear, incoherent laws for not providing life-saving abortions for their pregnant patients when necessary, even though they are faced with the possibility of life in prison if their judgement on this decision is challenged in court. Vital health laws written by laymen, not doctors, are doomed to misinterpretation. Simplistic non-medical terminology is not sufficient to make the decisions you are asking doctors to make when faced with a woman in crisis vs immense legal ramifications. What do you think you would do if found in a similar situation? Surely some of you are lawyers? 2. Because the types of cases we’re seeing being filed against these unclear laws do not have precedent in most cases, there are no prior decisions to fall back or refer to for clarification. That means that courts are being forced to figure out what you guys meant when you wrote the language you wrote when you cavalierly stole our rights. Which means pregnant people will be victimized twice. Once during the pregnancy crisis and again during any pending legal actions. Basically people in crisis will get to be the legal Guinea pigs to help Texas figure out the laws you wrote. The onus is being put on women, doctors and the courts. But it’s your sloppy lawmaking that’s the problem. You made the mess. Others get to suffer in real time trying to clean it up. So thanks for that.