Texas doctor claims new state abortion law illegal, says he already violated it

A Texas doctor claimed on Saturday that he had deliberately violated the state’s new abortion law in order to verify if it was legal.

Alan Braid, an obstetrician-gynecologist in San Antonio, explained his actions in an essay published in the Washington Post.

Braid writes that he understands “that there could be legal consequences” because of his action.

“But I wanted to make sure Texas didn’t get away with trying to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested.”

He later added: “I understand that by offering an abortion beyond the new legal limit, I am taking a personal risk, but this is something I firmly believe in.”

“I understand that by offering an abortion beyond the new legal limit I’m taking a personal risk, but it’s something I firmly believe in.”

– Alan Braid, obstetrician-gynecologist in San Antonio

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed the abortion bill in May and it came into effect on September 1.

Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general who helped prepare the bill, defended it in a legal brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court in which he calls on the court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 high court decision that legalized abortion, The Guardian reported.

“Change their behavior”

Mitchell argues in the brief that a higher degree of personal integrity in response to a judicial ban on abortions would help render illegal abortions unnecessary, the outlet said.

“Women can ‘control their reproductive life’ without having access to abortion; they can do it by not having sex, ”Mitchell writes. “You can imagine a scenario where a woman chooses to have unprotected (or insufficiently protected) sex on the assumption that an abortion will be available to her later. But when this court announces Roe’s cancellation, that person may simply change their behavior in response to the court’s decision if she no longer wants to take the risk of an unwanted pregnancy. “

The Supreme Court is expected to deal with a Mississippi case during its next term that could affect Roe v. Wade, The Guardian reported.

But Braid doesn’t support a return to the days before Roe v. Wade, he wrote in the Post.

“For me, it’s still 1972,” Braid writes. At that time, he continues, abortions in Texas were mainly available to women with economic means who could afford to travel to states like California, Colorado or New York to have the procedure. He claims the new Texas law brings the state back to that time.

He claims he saw three teenagers die from illegal abortions while performing emergency service as an OB-GYN resident at a San Antonio hospital.

“A duty of vigilance”

On September 6, five days after the new Texas law came into effect, he writes, he aborted a woman in the first trimester of her pregnancy – a violation of state law.

“I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do to all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care.”

Last Tuesday, the US Department of Justice asked a Texas federal judge to temporarily suspend implementation of the new Texas law.

The emergency motion seeking a temporary injunction comes days after the DOJ sued Texas over the law, saying it was enacted to “prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights.”

The law came into effect on September 1 after being upheld in a 5-4 decision by the United States Supreme Court. It is the strictest abortion law in the country. Critics say many women don’t yet know they’re pregnant at six weeks – around the time a fetal heartbeat can be detected for the first time – and the law makes no exceptions for rape or incest.

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“It’s clearly unconstitutional,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said earlier this month. “The obvious and expressly recognized intention of this legal regime is to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other Republicans have pledged to defend the new law.

“Biden should focus on solving the border crisis, Afghanistan, the economy and countless other disasters instead of interfering with the sovereign rights of states,” Paxton wrote on Twitter Sept. 9. . “I will use all available resources to fight for my life.”

The law prohibits all abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks, and also allows people who oppose abortion to sue clinics and others who are helping a woman to survive. have an abortion.