Editorial: Lawmakers inflict heartbreak and harm with lax understanding of pregnancy

The nightmarish experience of an expectant mother in Texas underscores why lawmakers, in their zeal to protect the unborn at all costs, should have no business telling doctors how to do their jobs. The Houston woman, Elizabeth Weller, badly wanted a child and was heartbroken when her water broke at 18 weeks of pregnancy. The baby’s chances of survival were minuscule, and a painful, suffocating death was assured without amniotic fluid to surround the baby in the womb for the remaining weeks of pregnancy. But Texas lawmakers had so confused the rules about when an abortion could legally occur un...