"A doctor has a direct, personal, substantial interest for his decision may send him to jail. Not only does the State prevent the physician from making an impartial decision about terminating his patient’s pregnancy, it unfairly influences this decision in a shocking way. The State says that only if the physician wrongly decides that the operation is needed to preserve her life is he criminally liable. If he wrongly decides the operation is not needed to preserve her life, he is subject to no criminal penalties. The State of Texas thus requires that all errors in a doctor’s evaluation of his patient’s need for termination of pregnancy be on the side of her death... A physician practising medicine under the Texas statute cannot keep as his sole concern his patient’s life. A doctor would have to be superhuman if he were able to ignore the fact that his decision can be second-guessed by a jury which may totally disregard medical evidence. Therefore, his patient cannot receive the impartial decision required by due process of law...."
January 1, 1970