Penalties for doctors in state abortion prohibitions

introduction

There have been several top -class cases in relation to exceptions to save health or life from pregnant patients in state abortion bans. Main cases that have reached the Supreme Court of the United States (Moyle v. Idaho) and Texas Supreme Court (Zurawski against Texas) have highlighted the considerable challenges for doctors who offer pregnancy -related care in countries with abortion banks. According to a survey of 2023 KFF, 61% of Obgyns who practice in states in which the report on their legal risk is concerned with decisions about the patient care and the need to provide the abortion of their patients. Some of the concern about legal risks is based on the “appropriate medical judgment” used in most states if an abortion is qualified for an exception. This legal standard does not take up the judgment of the treating doctor, but allows a court to check the circumstances after the abortion has been completed, and is based on the testimony of other medical experts to determine whether the treating doctor has reached the standard. However, some lawyers against abortions, legislators and general prosecutors claim that doctors, not the prohibitions on abortion, are responsible for rejection and care, are responsible, and implies that providers are exposed to medical misconduct due to non -compliance with the exceptions. This letter examines the legal considerations for doctors, abortion care, including criminal and professional punishments, as well as the potential for medical misconduct for delayed care in patients due to prohibitions and persecution due to violation of abortion bans in all national borders that are for late care.

What criminal punishments are doctors about abortion?

Eleven of the 12 states with abortion banks give clinicians who violate their respective bans. These punishments have the severity of a few months in prison to the possibility of a lifelong prison sentence. All up to two of these 11 states – Arkansas and South Dakota – are concerned with minimum rates due to violation of their prohibitions on abortion. In Alabama, for example, a violation of the overall ban is a crime of class A and has a minimum sentence of ten years and a maximum prison sentence of 99 years. Class A crimes is the most serious crime in Alabama, the abortion brings the first degree into the same criminal category as murder and domestic violence. Other states set the violation of their prohibitions on abortion in the same category as crimes as serious physical injury (tennessee), involuntary manslaughter (Indiana) and stalking against a protective arrangement (Kentucky). The law of West Virginia does not include a prison sentence for licensed doctors who violate the abortion ban, but it includes 3 to 10 years of prison for other people who violate the law.

In addition, penalties include fines, and in many countries there are violations of the abortion ban or conviction of a crime are a reason for the revocation of the medical license. If a doctor's license is revoked, they do not return to practicing medicine even after their prison sentence. License -repainted penalties endanger the livelihood of the doctors. In many states, the revocation of the license in another state is reason to refuse a new medical license or to revoke an existing license. This means that a doctor loses his license

In many states in which abortion rights are supported, laws have passed to protect clinicians from loss of their license and to change their license regulations in such a way that a doctor's license in another state, exclusively due to the provision of an abortion supply that would have been legally in the state, would not have been contested. Under these circumstances, however, there is no certainty that a doctor can receive a license in another state. And even if the doctors had the certainty, the medical mediation would continue to move into another state.

No clinician has been convicted and imprisoned since the abortion because he has carried out an abortion Dobbs The judgment that a doctor in New York, in which abortion is protected, was charged with a crime due to the shipping of medication abdominal pills that were handed over to a minor in Louisiana (discussed below). However, there were cases that indicate that the threat caused by criminal prosecution caused doctors to delay health or life care, and prevented them from practicing medication based on accepted care standards. In a UCSF study, several cases of patients with pregnancy complications were determined that were refused to provide abortion that corresponded to clinical standards in states in which abortion is prohibited. The cases included obstetric complications of the second trimester such as premature babies, premature-born membranes (PPROM), bleeding, cervical dilution and high blood pressure as well as ectopic pregnancy, the abortion care also became pregnancy with patients with underlying diseases that were continuously experienced by pregnancy.

Medical misconduct

While doctors are confronted with criminal and professional punishments if they offer abortion for health reasons, which will later be secondly tacted in court, they may be sued for medical incorrect packaging because they do not ensure timely and necessary care.

Post-DobbsThere are no documented cases of complaints from medical misconduct complaints from pregnant patients who have been refused to provide care or did not receive them in time. However, there have been growing calls to anti-abbreviation supporters to have the treatment of doctors who are liable for delays or rejections of miscarriage management or another care of pregnant people.

In response to the demands for exceptions to abortion banks that are to be expanded in the area of ​​the scope, the legislator and the general prosecutor's attorney argued that it is not a guidelines, but the doctors who are blamed or distracted in situations in which care was delayed. For example in the case Zurawski against TexasIf women who were exposed to dangerous pregnancy complications that had been refused to provide the abortion of emergency care and asked two Overtical gynals of Texan dishes to clarify the scope of the medical emergency exceptions in the state's abortion prohibitions, the lawyers for the state of Texas argued that it was not the state's ban on abortion due to timely care. Instead, he argued that doctors have committed misconduct and are to blame and suggested that people should not sue their doctors, not the state, if they are unable to receive a promptly abortion supply in life -threatening medical emergencies.

Persecution of providers across national borders

In 2023, some states began to adopt “shield laws”. These laws aim to protect doctors from the public prosecutor, which was introduced in states in which abortion is prohibited, as long as the doctor is within the state with the shield law and the care they granted in the same state, regardless of the patient location. From July 2023 to June 2024, the Society for Family Planning estimates that 1 out of 10 abortions in the United States, for which the pills were sent from providers who practiced shield laws in states.

In December 2024, the Attorney General in Texas submitted a shield law against a New York doctor in the first action because he had sent medication pills into the state. In the lawsuit it is claimed that the doctor has violated Texas law by violating medicine in the state of Texas without a license in Texas and for violating the abortion ban of the state and the bans of telemedicine for the abortion supply of the state. On February 13, 2025, after the doctor had not answered the lawsuit or appeared in legal proceedings, a court proceedings submitted a default judgment for the state in which the doctor prescribed the prescription of medication of abortions and ordered them to pay $ 100,000 in civil penalties. In addition, a Grand jury in Louisiana charged the same New York doctor in January 2025 for violating Louisiana's abortion and restrictions. The minor's mother, who received the abortion of medication, was also charged. The shield laws in the state of New York try to protect providers from this type of legal disputes. Therefore, these cases are likely to serve as a test case for shield laws and their ability to protect clinicians who protect an abortion supply through telegesism to patients in countries who prohibit or restrict abortion. In the case of Louisiana, however, the minor's mother has no similar protection against ban.

Challenges in exceptions to abortion banks

In response to the prohibitions on abortion, doctors who practice in Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas submitted complaints to question the vague, tightness and lack of respect for the medical exceptions in state abortion prohibitions. These challenges claim, among other things, the vagueness of the exceptions that are excessively livelihood and freedom of doctors at stake. A complaint submitted by the providers of South Carolina also argues that the exceptions to the state ban violates their first amendments to practice their faith. This includes the convictions that you should use your medical training to end the inquiries from the patients for pregnancies that threaten to damage them, or if a fetus is diagnosed with a fatal anomalysis, which is diagnosed with a fetus, which is not allowed to be diagnosed, which is permitted.

The Supreme Court of Texas issued decisions in both challenges in the state – Zurawski against Texas And Cox v. Texas – rule in favor of the state and leave the close exceptions untouched. A Tennessee court has partly granted an injunction that prevents the state from taking disciplinary measures against doctors, offering abortion care to protect the pregnant person's health (in contrast to Texas, Tennessee has a health exception for her abortion ban). However, since the court did not lack the criminal law, it did not block the criminal enforcement of the law against doctors. Regardless of whether these complaints will ultimately expand the scope of the exceptions or the observation of the judgment of the doctors, depends on the decisions of the respective Supreme Court of each state.