As anyone with any sense predicted, doctors are having great difficulty applying the new (or revived) state abortion prohibitions to certain kinds of doomed pregnancies. As a result, women aren’t getting the medical care they need, and the horror stories are mounting. Ross Douthat thinks the way to solve that problem is to somehow make it clear to doctors that they are in more jeopardy from malpractice cases than from a criminal prosecution from an overzealous state attorney. Is he right?
Leave aside, for the moment, the equities involved in putting doctors in this kind of a no-win situation. If you were a doctor, what would you do? That’s right! You would dump patients who put you in peril and tell them to seek treatment in other states. You might even leave the profession altogether. What else could you do?
So, no, terrorizing doctors with civil liability is not good public policy. It only makes things worse.