Politicians now believe they know more about women’s health than doctors | Opinion

Last week the state of Texas alleged it possesses more medical knowledge about pregnant women than they and their doctors do.

Kate Cox was 20 weeks pregnant with a baby who had been diagnosed with a fatal disease. Doctors advised Mrs. Cox, who is 31 years old and the mother of two young children, that proceeding with the pregnancy was not only a risk to her future fertility, but also her life.

Texas law prohibits abortion after six weeks or after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, with a narrow exception for medical emergencies. For weeks Mrs. Cox had been in and out of emergency rooms with cramps and fluid leakage caused by her high-risk pregnancy. She successfully petitioned a court to permit an abortion in her case, citing the medical emergency exception. A female judge agreed.

Before she could obtain the procedure, Texas Attorney General, conservative Republican Ken Paxton, intervened and asked the state Supreme Court to prevent the abortion and threatened hospitals and doctors with lawsuits if they performed the procedure.

The Texas Supreme Court, entirely made up of Republicans, mostly men, agreed that Mrs. Cox’s condition did not meet the statutory requirement of a medical emergency.

If Mr. Paxton or any of the judges on the Court had ever experienced debilitating cramps with amniotic fluid running down their legs, they might have a different perspective. If that isn’t a medical emergency, what is?

Does a pregnant woman, knowing she faces serious, potentially life-threatening complications from a doomed pregnancy, have to wait until she’s septic or bleeding out and on the verge of death before she seeks treatment to qualify for the medical exemption? Sounds like an emergency to me.

Republicans tout their family values. I fail to see how putting a mother’s life at risk is a family value.

Mrs. Cox is fortunate she had time to pursue her case through the legal system. The women who end up in emergency rooms don’t have that luxury. Doctors shouldn’t have to worry about the Texas state legislature’s definition of a medical emergency while making life and death decisions with the lives of their patients. They shouldn’t have to spend precious time in an emergency room wondering whether their decisions will cost them their medical licenses or send them to prison.

The Texas Supreme Court had it right when it stated a judge does not have the qualifications to determine what constitutes a medical emergency. However, when you legislate a woman’s body, these pesky little real-life issues arise.

Imagine how Mrs. Cox must feel — not only is she carrying a dying baby who poses a threat to her own health, a heartbreaking, unfathomable situation, all three branches of the Texas government are telling her and her doctors they aren’t smart enough to make their own healthcare decisions without supervision from the government.

Republicans aren’t conservative anymore. That ship has sailed. Instead of advocating for smaller government, they think they have the right to overrule doctors in determining what is best for a pregnant woman and her baby. The hypocrisy would be laughable it weren’t so horrific. How arrogant do you have to be to think your opinion is more valid than that of a medical professional?

Fortunately for Mrs. Cox, she also has the opportunity to travel out of state to get the health care she needs, as degrading and infuriating as that is. Other women won’t be so lucky. If women can’t even depend on the medical emergency exemption to save their lives, they will seek other avenues to terminate their pregnancies, some of which are not as safe as the medical procedure. Women will die. History tells us this is true.

Why does that matter to Kentuckians?

Kentucky’s law prohibits abortion in all circumstances after a fetal heartbeat is detected, at about six weeks, with the only exception being medical emergencies. Abortion is illegal in any other situation.

Imagine your daughter or sister or wife is a Kentucky Kate Cox. How confident are you that if her doctor determines her pregnancy is dangerous to her health, that she will get the care she needs to save her life? How confident are you the medical exemptions in Kentucky’s law will be any more effective than those in Texas?

Make you queasy? It should.

What can you do? Check your legislator’s voting record. It’s likely he or she voted for similar restrictions in Kentucky. Tell them to fix it before they start trying to make health care decisions for you.

Shelley Roberts Bendall is a writer from Lexington.