When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it claimed to be removing the judiciary from the abortion debate. In reality, it simply gave the courts a macabre new task: deciding how far states can push a patient toward death before allowing her to undergo an emergency abortion.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit offered its own answer, declaring that Texas may prohibit hospitals from providing “stabilizing treatment” to pregnant patients by performing an abortion—withholding the procedure until their condition deteriorates to the point of grievous injury or near-certain death.
The ruling proves what we already know: Roe’s demise has transformed the judiciary into a kind of death panel that holds the power to elevate the potential life of a fetus over the actual life of a patient.
You haven’t answered the question. Texas Law circumscribes when self defence is a justification for the use of lethal force, and the situation is laid out as above: there must be someone who is or is believed to be about to unlawfully use force against the person being protected.
The foetus is not “trying” to kill the mother, and even if it were doing so, no court or reasonable person would describe it as an “unlawful use of force.” It’s just growing, presumably in a way harmful to the mother’s life. Growing naturally is not “using force” and there’s no law against it, so even if it were it wouldn’t be unlawful.
Doctors, by declining medical care, are not using force, and unless there is a statute requiring them to provide care, also wouldn’t be doing so unlawfully. If there were such a statute, it and the abortion ban would be in conflict, which is a more realistic way the ban might be struck down in the courts.
In the case at hand the likelihood of the mother actually dying should in fact be low - not almost certain as would be required for a charge of depraved heart murder.
You are talking in general terms about self defence standards instead of the text of the law on Texas’ books.