That's an apparent potential problem, yes.

Crossbowman:" In essence, the assumption of medical competence has been taken away from the physician. The patient must go to court at their own expense to prove in each individual case that there is a basis for a health exception, this at a time when the window of action is short, when delay could end up meaning either killing a by-that-time viable fetus to protect the mother or allowing injury or death to the mother to rescue the now-viable fetus - assuming of course the mother doesn't come to harm while waiting for the wheels of justice to turn."

There is an implantable valve for that hydrocephaly problem, isn't there? I had the impression that if the valve were to be used early enough, the infant would be alright, spared the hydrocephaly.

(added link)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocephaly

Crossbowman:"This is the bias I'm referring to. The court is biased in favor of the State: they make make law without being burdened by a health exception. The court is biased against the mother - she must prove she's at risk to receive the procedure without her physician risking legal consequence. The court is biased against the physician: his medical judgment is not sufficient, but must be weighed and assessed by a third party (one who, mind you, is trained in law, not medicine). In essence, the court has said, "We don't trust you to make these decisions the way we think they should be made, so we're going to make you come to us whenever you want to make them." "

Similarly, the courts and local officials seemed to be biased against the Louisiana octaroon Plessy. In your scenario, I don't think the bias against mother is entirely in favor of the foetus/infant, but it seems to be going in that direction. Is this wrong to consider the infant as an individual?

I am willing to agree that the greatest mercy may be to terminate a seriously ill or deformed foetus, but only at the option of the mother, whom I/we already grant the right to kill her perfectly normally formed and developed offspring in the womb.

Crossbowman:"And, this bias is in my opinion in the service of a deeper bias, one toward a particular religious view of the fetus. That argument is harder to make, admittedly. I base it on some of the wording in the body of the ruling itself, the way the opinion refers to the fetus and the questioned act. It's subtle, but its inescapable when you consider that, at a time when a conservative State has made no secret of its intent to eliminate abortion and has put forth a flawed law based on false premises, the Court has responded not by sending the law back for much-needed correction but by removing the need for any premises and shifting the burden to the individual."

Don't get too radical, or else I will wonder if you also would like to take "In God We Trust" off our money.

I have decided in my own personal approach to try not to overly worry about things that are on the fringes of controllability.

Clearly, doing a caesarian, f'rinstance, is within the predictable expectable range of acceptable action and risk.

Thanks for a challenging and intelligent post. Maybe I will look at your links later, if you think I am still missing something important?