This is a hard subject, and I want to come at it gently. It touches families at the most frightening hour of their lives, and nothing I write here is meant to make light of that. I pray for those families, and I mean it. But I have a view on one part of it, and I think it deserves to be said plainly.
Texas bans nearly all abortions. The law makes an exception for medical emergencies, and some doctors have said that exception is unclear to them. They say they are not always sure where the line is, and so they hesitate. Some people treat this as a scandal. I read it and felt something closer to reassurance.
I have always trusted a careful man. When my house was built, the contractor would not pour the foundation until the county inspector had signed off. Our crew stood around half a morning waiting on that signature. Some of them grumbled. I did not. I wanted the man who poured my foundation to be a little afraid of getting it wrong. Fear of the rules is how you get a house that stands.
It seems to me a doctor ought to feel the same way. If he is unsure whether the law allows something, the right thing is to stop and find out. Call the hospital’s lawyer. Wait for an answer. A doctor who hesitates is a doctor who respects the law, and I would rather have one of those than a doctor who decides for himself what the law means.
I will go a step further, because I think it is true. When it comes to reading a statute, I trust a lawyer over a physician. That is not an insult to doctors. It is simply their training. A doctor spends his years learning the body. A lawyer spends his learning the words, and the words are what matter here. If the two of them disagree about what a law allows, I know whose reading I would want on the record.
People tell me that in medicine, waiting has a cost of its own. I do not know enough about medicine to argue, and I have no wish to. What I do know is that the law was written carefully, by people who meant well, and that careful work deserves careful following. If following it takes a little longer, that is the price of living under laws instead of under the judgment of whoever happens to be in the room.
I know there are families who see it differently, and I do not doubt their sincerity. They have been through things I have not. I would only ask them to remember that a doctor who stops to check is not their enemy. He is a man trying to keep within the lines, which is all any of us are asked to do.
I will be voting for the Republican for Senate this fall, in part because I want doctors to keep checking with the lawyer first. My impression is that the other side would like the doctor’s own judgment to count for more in that room, and I am not ready to give up the phone call.
No one I love has ever had to wait on that phone call. I thank God for that, and I try not to think about it much further.
D. M.