Amerika

You have read the headlines: woman dies in Texas because doctors will not abort the fetus! Horrible Texas abortion ban is killing women! Put on a handmaid’s costume and run screaming into the streets on fire.

The reality is not as dire as the headlines pretend. For example, look for weasel words in the articles:

Josseli Barnica arrived at a Houston hospital at 17 weeks pregnant in Sept. 2, 2021, experiencing severe cramping and bleeding, according to the nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica. The next day, an ultrasound confirmed she was experiencing a miscarriage.

However, Barnica reportedly told her husband that doctors could not intervene.

“They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” the husband, whose name was not disclosed, told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”

First, what are the actual sources?

Rep. Colin Allred, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate who has made abortion access a central tenant of his campaign, quickly used Barnica’s story as a critique of Sen. Ted Cruz’s anti-abortion stance.

A Democratic politician and the husband are the only sources. See if you can find another in the article; we have an anecdotal chain here, where Allred is telling us what the husband said he heard from the hospital. Even better, the husband is doing it in Spanish. All of this is reported by ProPublica.

Most likely, Barnica went to an emergency room with her pregnancy, and they stabilized her but said she needed specialist care not available at this local emergency hospital. HCA Houston Northwest exists to do urgent care and will then refer you to a specialist.

Now let us look at the actual Texas abortion law that we are dealing with:

Chapter 170A of the Texas Health & Safety Code prohibits abortions outright, except in certain narrow circumstances.

Section 170A.002 prohibits a person from performing, inducing, or attempting an abortion. There is an exception for situations in which the life or health of the pregnant patient is at risk. In order for the exception to apply, three factors must be met:

• A licensed physician must perform the abortion.
• The patient must have a life-threatening condition and be at risk of death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function” if the abortion is not performed. “Substantial impairment of a major bodily function” is not defined in this chapter.
• The physician must try to save the life of the fetus unless this would increase the risk of the pregnant patient’s death or impairment.

There are additional situations where the exception for the life or health of the patient does not apply. Please read the entirety of Section 170A.002 for more details.

In other words, a physician would have no problem legally performing an abortion if the situation were as described.

If they left out some details — like that they were at an ER, and the ER referred them to an expert to save the baby but they did not go — then the story suddenly fits together.

Without that, you have an absurd drama constructed of nothing.

Are these people legally in the USA? Do they have health insurance? These questions are not addressed.

As a fan of abortion who thinks more people should have been aborted, I find it hard to like the Texas law as anything but a giant middle finger to California and New York liberals thinking of moving here. You already wrecked Austin, and we do not want any more of you.

However, bad arguments and deceptions of any form really trash the political process, so it is important to dig through the lies and figure out what really happened, even if that does not allow Allred and the DNC to score political points.

Tags: abortion, illegal aliens, texas