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Here's the thing. You have to look at it from the doctor's point of view.
If the doctor gives assistance to one woman in violation of state law, he risks losing his license and his freedom. He may have helped one patient, but how many other current or future patients are now at risk for a variety of reasons because he's no longer available to help them? How is the community best served by having one less doctor to serve them? Are they willing to send their own families into personal and financial ruin when his salary vanishes and he ends up in jail? It's a classic example of Sophie's Choice.
Given the point above, no doctor is going to put their careers on the line to hide behind a federal law that states are routinely challenging or outright ignoring, and that may very well be overturned by this Supreme Court if given the opportunity.
Even if the doctor wanted to use the federal law as a legal defense, that is a case that would still take years to go through the court system. Not only is this extremely expensive, but it's years that the doctor will still have his license suspended, or years that he'll still be in jail for violating state law, or at the very least years that he is unable to help the women of his state. How many of his other patients would be affected in the meantime while he fights a case he isn't even guaranteed to win?
This is where the problem is. It's easy to say that the doctors can just use federal law as a legal defense so they can administer care, but the reality of the situation is so, so much more complicated than that. And this is the exact effect that the GOP wanted it to have: Make the punishment for going against the system or even trying to fight the system so untenable to doctors that they essentially force doctors into compliance out of fear, rather than having to deal with doctors willing to challenge the system in order to get the best care for their patients. And it's working.
Cowardly to protect more lives by remaining a doctor? Cowardly to not throw his life into chaos to help people who statistically probably voted for this new paradigm or didn't bother voting at all? How about primary elections where turnout is 10%? He's supposed to martyr his life to help Idiocracy win? Decades of top scores and academic rigor should be eager to die?
No. I don't think doctors are the cowards here. I think this is the situation that people voted for. This is where apathy has taken us.