Texas abortion providers argued in court Thursday that it is not medically necessary to require women to undergo injections or other procedures in order to comply with a new state law restricting the most common second-trimester abortion procedure.
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Dr. Mark Nichols, an Oregon-based doctor, called the dilation and evacuation procedure the safest method to perform a second-trimester abortion. Nichols argued the three most common procedures used to kill the fetus before performing the abortion are often complicated to perform, require extra training and are not always effective. He also believes they are not medically necessary.
“There is a real failure rate in the procedures we described,” he said.
If a similar law to SB8 existed in Oregon, Nichols said he would hesitate to perform the dilation and evacuation procedure out of fear that the fetus may still be alive, and he would then violate the law.
Under SB8, doctors would face criminal charges for violating the ban, except in a case of a medical emergency. The law was set to go into effect Sept. 1, but Yeakel blocked its implementation with a temporary restraining order which remains in effect.
Nichols said doctors may end up having to experiment on patients “to figure out how not to violate the law.”
According to 2015 data, the latest available, the procedure was used 4,386 times to terminate a pregnancy. In total, 55,287 abortions were performed that year, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
See here, here, and here for the background, and here for Friday coverage. The Trib had a story from before the hearings began, if you want more background. We all know that this is a multi-year process that will end up before the Supreme Court, and along the way the Fifth Circuit will rubber stamp the state’s law under whatever pretext it feels like using. It’s like the NBA regular season, where the real action is in positioning oneself for the final showdown. All I can say is that I’ve had a few medical procedures in my time, including a few surgeries, and I’m damn glad the state of Texas hasn’t tried to intervene in the treatment. I don’t want them to make medical decisions for my doctors, and I don’t want them making medical decisions for other people’s doctors. Not sure why this is so hard to understand.