Dozens of pregnant women, some bleeding or in labor, being turned away from ERs despite federal law

And this is where the Sophie's Choice comes in.

Because you are absolutely right. Nobody wants to have to explain that to someone in immediate need.

But what about his other patients? What about the high risk pregnancies that he's been carefully monitoring for the past several months? Will any of them even be able to find another doctor that knows about whatever specific condition they have? What happens if you're one of the only, if not the only OB/GYN in an underserved rural area? What happens when other doctors in the area close up shop out of fear of being the next one prosecuted?

There is no good answer. That's the whole point. The doctor has to choose between saving the one vs. saving the many.

That's horrible and unjust. But it doesn't invalidate everything else. That poor woman is understandably looking at it from her perspective, which doesn't give a damn about what comes next. Part of medicine and medical policy is making difficult decisions. Let's look the other direction where what the government has done isnt evil.

The opioid epidemic has been devastating. Recently, they've restricted prescribing of opioid to surgeons and pain specialists instead of everyday physicians. When my back goes out and I can't make it to the toilet do you think I care about the big picture? I've never had issues with opiod abuse and use them just as pain killers to get me through the worst of it. I always need up with most of my prescription expiring.

But my individual suffering is less than the societal cost of easy access to opioids.

With this insane abortion law, it's clear the state is in the wrong, but the doctors have to look at the impact of their decisions. The doctors want to help that poor woman. It's the easy, satisfying thing to do in the moment. But if the outcome is fewer people receiving medical treatment is it a net positive.

Maybe?

It really depends on the rate at which this is happening and whether the doctors would actually win at court.

That's the security guard's problem

Alternatively, we could not have laws that jail doctors from doing the right thing.

The real coward's choice would be to simply leave the state. These laws are absolutely draconian and awful and there are no good choices.

Your statement does not give the portrayal of bravado that you think it does. It gives off the cowardice of a keyboard warrior who knows that his words have no consequences and he will never have to actually make that kind of decision.

Let me know when you are willing to put your career, your freedom, and your family's financial security at significant risk in order to help a complete stranger.

Why haven't you flown down there to help? Because you're a coward?

It's the trolley problem made manifest. Help one person and possibly kill a dozen others, or let one person probably die so that you can possibly help more.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and regardless of which you choose, you're the monster. This is exactly what Republicans want. Either these doctors risk everything to save these women, or they try to help everybody else and get hate from people like you. That anger would be better spent on the people who put these laws into place and the people who voted for them and support these draconian laws.

What oath? The hippocratic oath? The unenforced and unenforceable oath that's actually meaningless?

I've never had to think less about blocking someone.

Cowardly to protect more lives by remaining a doctor? Cowardly to not throw his life into chaos to help people who statistically probably voted for this new paradigm or didn't bother voting at all? How about primary elections where turnout is 10%? He's supposed to martyr his life to help Idiocracy win? Decades of top scores and academic rigor should be eager to die?

No. I don't think doctors are the cowards here. I think this is the situation that people voted for. This is where apathy has taken us.

You do realize that the traditional Hippocratic and Osteopathic oaths forbid abortions, right? A lot of physicians adhere to more modern versions, but if you're going by the traditional Hippocratic oath, you're just talking out your ass about something you don't actually understand the context and consequences of.

Edit: It appears that I should clarify some things. I do not agree with the original Hippocratic or Osteopathic oaths. I refuse to take them, and have instead written my own for myself and my firmly held beliefs. Abortion and euthanasia are expressly forbidden by the original oaths, and there are still quite a few physicians that point to those oaths to excuse themselves from violating conservative religious beliefs on those topics. I support the right to abortions, and the right to die with dignity. It's still important to recognize that the original oaths that many physicians (old and new) ascribe to forbid these, and that they will use those oaths as an excuse to violate patients' rights in favor of their own beliefs.

Then you make them vote and you primary the fuck out of them.

Funny how everyone in the senate seems to forget how to politic when it suits them.

Oh stop making excuses for the Jim Crow Filibuster.

Democrats had the seats and just enough no votes. Because they ALWAYS find the no votes.

Children being forced to carry rapists' offspring to term was the price that they were delighted to pay to keep their procedural excuse for inaction.