Court Opinion

ID: 9767584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:21:53.991999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:31.893878
License: Public Domain

POPE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The summary judgment proof shows that Dr. Theimer was negligent in failing to diagnose Mrs. Jacobs’ condition as rubella and in failing to advise her that rubella -when contracted during pregnancy often results in a defective child. The summary judgment proofs show that there was no known cure for rubella and the only alternative open to Mrs. Jacobs was to terminate the pregnancy by abortion, as that term was defined by statute at the time of her pregnancy in 1968. Since there was no known cure for rubella, defendant’s negligence in failing to diagnose it was not a proximate cause of any damages.
The Jacobses contend that Dr. Theimer should have advised them so they could nfake the decision to terminate the pregV /nancy. In 1968, under the summary judg4 merit proofs, there was no lawful way the! Jacobses could do that which was the sole solution to the problem. No ordinary phy-f siqian or other person could foresee an abortion in violation of the statutory and case law as it then existed.
In 1968, Article 1191, Vernon’s Ann.Penal Code, defined an abortion as the destruction of the fetus or embryo in the woman’s womb or the causing of a premature birth.1 Punishment for performing or procuring an abortion even with the woman’s consent subjected the violator to a *851penalty of two to five years in the penitentiary. Article 1196 2 permitted an abortion for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. The record before us shows that the mother’s health or life was not endangered. Article 4505,3 Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St, stated that the State Board of Medical Examiners may refuse to admit persons to its examinations and to issue a license to one who procures or aids or abets “the procuring of a criminal abortion.” Article 4506 4 provided that the Board of Medical Examiners may cancel, revoke, or suspend the license.of a practitioner for any cause for which the Board is authorized to refuse to admit one to its medical examinations as provided in Article 4505, supra. Article 1192 of the Penal Code said that anyone who furnishes the means for procuring an abortion is an accomplice.
In 1968, the legal advice which was available to Dr. Theimer would show that there were physicians who had actually served terms as felons in the Texas penitentiary for violations of the abortion laws, that Article 1191 had been ruled constitutional in Jackson v. State, 55 Tex.Cr. 79, 89, 115 S.W. 262 (1908), and that one is an accomplice who furnishes the means, medicine or instruments to produce an abortion. Moore v. State, 37 Tex.Cr. 552, 40 S.W. 287 (1897). This then was the Texas policy, the expressed standard of the Board of Medical Examiners, as well as the statutory and judicial standard for physicians and all others with respect to abortions as then defined.
But, it is urged, the choice was not Dr. Theimer’s; it was Mrs. Jacobs’. Mrs. Jacobs had no lawful choice as viewed from the 1968 vantage point but to obey the law which prohibited her from destroying or procuring the destruction of the embryo. The suggested alternative would have made a felon of any person whom she procured to produce an abortion as then defined.
But Mrs. Jacobs says she could have gone to some jurisdiction which permitted abortions. The presumption is that foreign law is the same as that of Texas in the absence of pleading and proof of such law. 1 C. McCormick & R. Ray, Texas Law of Evidence § 99 (2d ed. 1956); Ex parte Gesek, 164 Tex.Cr.R. 652, 302 S.W.2d 417 (1956). There is no proof in this record of any foreign law.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147, which was decided in January, 1973, ruled that all of the Texas laws concerning abortions as well as those of the other states were unconstitutional ab initio. According to the argument, those laws, proscriptions and penalties, never existed, did not exist even in 1968.
The undisputed proof is that during 1968 the processes of the law and “the power to pass decisive judgment” for abortion law violators were in full operation in Texas and continued as such until January 22, 1973. The state of the laws and the machinery to try, enforce and execute those laws are a part of the facts by which we must judge one’s foreseeability that they would be swept aside to permit an abortion as early as 1968. I do not think it is good law which holds that an ordinary prudent person or an ordinary prudent physician could reasonably foresee that an abortion law which had stood since 1854 would be violated. Tex.Laws 1854, ch. 49, § 1, at 1502; 3 H. Gammel, Laws of Texas 1502 (1898). Nor do I think that any ordinary *852prudent person in 1968 would foresee that he could break the law and successfully prove that the statutes were unconstitutional, when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had ruled to the contrary. An ordinary prudent person, knowing that people were in the penitentiary for violations of the abortion statutes, would not himself break the law, violate nor find an ordinary prudent physician who would violate medical standards; incur the expenses incident to resisting an indictment, prosecution and trial for abortion; perfect an appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and expect a judgment which reversed its own long-standing decision upholding the validity of the abortion statutes; take the risks of imprisonment as a felon as well as the loss of his medical license and his career; and submit himself to such embarrassments because it was reasonably foreseeable that four years later the abortion statutes would be nullified by the United States Supreme Court.
The law as viewed by people in 1968 was not an abstraction; it was statutes, precedents, sheriffs, judges, grand jurors, process, arrests, courts, wardens. These were the vital characteristics of the law as viewed by one about to violate the abortion statutes. It is not necessary that we enter upon the debate between positivism and the natural law, but we ought not to impose a questionable philosophical view upon the ordinary prudent man and require him to violate laws which none of us knew would be invalidated years later. The teaching of the majority opinion is that everyone should pass his own judgment upon the “law in the books” and the “law in action” and decide which laws he should obey. Today’s decision creates two hundred million ordinary prudent constitutional lawyers, all endowed with the gift of prophecy.
I would affirm the judgment of the courts below.
DENTON, J., joins in this dissent.

. “If any person shall designedly administer to a pregnant woman or knowingly procure to be administered with her consent any drug or medicine or shall use towards her any violence or means whatever externally or internally apidied, and thereby procure an abortion he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years; if it be done without her consent, the punishment shall be doubled. By ‘abortion’ is meant that the life of the fetus or embryo shall be destroyed in the woman’s womb or that a premature birth thereof be caused.”

. “Nothing in this chapter applies to an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.”

. “(2) Conviction of a crime of the grade of a felony, or one which involves moral turpitude, or procuring or aiding or abetting the procuring of a criminal abortion.”

.“The Texas State Board of Medical Examiners shall have the right to cancel, revolt or suspend the license of any practitioner of medicine upon proof of the violation of the law in any respect with regard thereto, or for any cause for which the Board shall be authorized to refuse to admit persons to its examination, as provided in Article 4505 of the Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, 1925, as amended.”