General Discussion

Aside from the potential real legal ramifications. Just like your car insurance - malpractice insurance does not cover unlawful acts.
If you are doing donuts and speed racing and crash into someone - your auto insurance will not cover your damage, protect you from the other person suing you while the accident occurred while you were doing something illegal.
These laws were purposefully made to put fear in medical providers. Some of these laws are not clear enough about what is permissible and what is not. Every hospital has a legal department, if the legal department interprets the law to tell you that it is not permissible - then its not that simple for any medical provider to just ignore and just do what they want to. Who protects the providers? And keep in mind that we are talking about entire teams, not just a doctor, the nurses, anesthesiologists, even the low wage patient care tech checking blood pressure, required to care for the patient. Does the doctor that wants to do the procedure, despite what Greg Abbot and the hospital legal department says, force the nurses and patient care techs to join him? Does he attempt to do it all by him/herself if he can't convince those who may be scared of going to jail or being sued to join him? How does he/she convince a PCT that might be making $10 per hour to risk being sued or worse?

They have put the entire health care team in a no win situation - The fault squarely belongs with republicans who ripped away the rights of women. Health care providers are humans like the rest of us, they have children, spouses and families that depend on them. Asking them to risk their freedom, and security of their families is asking for a lot. It's the laws that need to change. Its republicans hell bent on controlling women that need to change.

When it's all said and done, there will be many women who have lost their lives. Many broken families. And yes, even broken health care providers. It's tough when you lose a patient. Its traumatic. Many providers get depressed, question themselves, even when it's not their fault. Providers are leaving states with some of these draconian laws. That puts the healthcare of all at risk. We already have a shortage of health care providers in this country. Many towns without OB GYNS, that will get worse. The maternal mortality rate will get worse. When it comes to high risk pregnancies, how many providers will want to continue to do that work?

The government and republicans need to stay out of healthcare decisions. Stop tying the hands of providers who want to provide care that patients need.