Usually, when Dan Patrick says something should happen in the Legislature, he gets his way. With this, I’m not so sure he actually has anything in mind, and as such I’m not expecting anything.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Sunday said the Legislature should amend the language of the state’s near-total abortion ban to address confusion over when doctors may terminate pregnancies.
“I do think we need to clarify any language so that doctors are not in fear of being penalized if they think the life of the mother is at risk,” Patrick said on the WFAA program “Inside Texas Politics.”
Patrick is the first major state elected official to offer support for changing the state’s abortion law in this legislative session. The Texas abortion ban went into effect in 2022 and prohibits abortions in all circumstances except when the life of the pregnant person is at risk.
Some doctors have said the law is unclear, however, as to how ill a pregnant person has to be to qualify for an abortion. Punishments for violating the abortion statute include up to life in prison and a fine of at least $100,000.
A group of 111 Texas obstetrician-gynecologists in November sent a letter to state leaders urging them to reform the law, which they said as written “threatens physicians with life imprisonment and loss of licensure for doing what is often medically necessary for the patient’s health and future fertility.”
The letter cited two recent investigations by ProPublica of pregnant women in Texas who died after doctors delayed treating their miscarriages, which can conflict with the abortion law, which prohibits doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus. More than a dozen medical experts consulted by the news organization concluded that the deaths of Josseli Barnica, 28, and Nevaeh Crain, 18, were preventable.
The reporting earned a rebuke from Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, who said in an op-ed published in the Houston Chronicle that the Texas Health and Safety Code clearly defines when a pregnant patient is ill enough to qualify for an abortion. Hughes said doctors had performed 119 abortions in life-saving situations since the law took effect.
You can listen to that podcast episode here if for some reason you’re starved for Dan Patrick content. I think this basically amounts to nothing for three reasons. One is that Patrick spoke in broad generalities rather than offer anything specific. It is possible to get a specific and narrow law passed to provide some kind of exception to the fanatical forced birth law we have now. He could have cited a specific situation, or waved his hands in the general direction of the Texas Medical Board’s guidance, or just mouthed some platitudes about consulting with doctors. He did none of that, which suggests to me this was some half-baked hypothetical, and we should not take it seriously.
Two, the party line all along, in public messaging and in legal defense of the existing law, is that it’s already clear-cut and any problems that result are the fault of doctors doing the wrong thing. Republicans, and Dan Patrick in particular, are not known for backing down from entrenched positions, as noted by Sen. Hughes’ whining above. The new rhetorical move on the right is to valorize the women who suffer and risk their lives instead of terminating any pregnancy, while the consensus among anti-abortion doctors like Ingrid Skop is that abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother. Is Dan freaking Patrick going to push back against that, even for some rare situation? I don’t think so.
And finally, the forced birth movement feels emboldened and vindicated by the 2024 election results, even as several states passed referenda to protect or restore abortion rights. Those ghouls have an agenda that very much does not include adding exceptions, while their pals in other states seek to charge people who get abortions with murder. Again I ask, does anyone believe Dan Patrick will swim against that tide? The question answers itself. I don’t know what Danno was thinking when he said that. But I feel confident I know what will happen as a result of what he said. As is so often the case these days, I’ll be delighted to be proven wrong. Go ahead and do that, Danno! I’m rooting for you! The Current has more.