A doctor in Texas said Saturday that he purposefully performed an illegal abortion, one that goes against the state’s new pro-life law, which bans …
A doctor in Texas said Saturday that he purposefully performed an illegal abortion, one that goes against the state’s new pro-life law, which bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy or when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Alan Braid, a San Antonio OB/GYN, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, titled, “Why I violated Texas’s extreme abortion ban.” Describing his career in Texas, Braid wrote, “When the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Roe v. Wade in 1973, recognizing abortion as a constitutional right, it enabled me to do the job I was trained to do.” He continued, “For the next 45 years — not including the two years I was away in the Air Force — I was a practicing OB/GYN in Texas, conducting Pap smears, pelvic exams and pregnancy check-ups; delivering more than 10,000 babies; and providing abortion care at clinics I opened in Houston and San Antonio, and another in Oklahoma.” Braid explained it was “1972 all over again” for him after the new Texas law was passed, which led him to perform an abortion on a woman who was “beyond the state’s new limit.” He argued that he “acted because [he] had a duty of care to this patient, as I do for all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care.
