[_gabe_]

> places like Kansas City because local abortion laws rule out certain medical procedures that could save the mother's life

What?

The headline of the article you linked literally says:

> Missouri, Kansas hospitals that denied emergency abortion broke the law

Also from the article you linked:

> But federal law, which requires doctors to treat patients in emergency situations, trumps those state laws

> In Kansas, when Farmer visited the hospital, abortions were still legal up to 22 weeks. It’s unclear why University of Kansas Health refused to offer Farmer one.

It's clear that the hospitals in these cases were the ones breaking the law by refusing to treat these women in need of emergency care.

[slg]

What federal investigators say after the fact doesn't change what happened in the moment. The hospital refused the treatment during a medical emergency. The article also quotes a hospital spokesperson who sticks by their behavior suggesting they will do this again in the future.

At the very least, doctors need to think about these issue during medical emergencies in many red states in ways that they don't have to in blue states. I personally don't want my doctor to have to consult legal counsel before giving me the treatment the doctor knows I need.

[DangitBobby]

It's now difficult in many states for a doctor to know ahead of time if actions they take for the health of the mother which risk terminating a pregnancy will be determined criminal in a court of law. And in some states, literally any relative of a fetus has standing in civil court to sue a doctor if the doctor's actions result in termination of a pregnancy, with huge minimum payouts for successful litigation. Idaho for example [0].

0. https://idahocapitalsun.com/2023/01/05/idaho-supreme-court-u...

[seanmcdirmid]

When faced with competing laws, doctors without law degrees are not going to sort things out as efficiently when compared to lawyers in a 10 year court battle.