While most state abortion bans include some sort of exception when the mother's life is at risk, it will fall to doctors to prove whether a patient qualifies in an emergency — or possibly face charges.
While most state abortion bans include some sort of exception when the life of the mother is at risk, it will fall to doctors to prove whether a patient qualifies in an emergency, or possibly face charges.Every case is unique — and the murky wording of some of the laws could create confusion and put pregnant women's lives at risk, experts say.
In some cases, the life of a pregnant person may be in imminent danger, but in other cases, the risk of death may be harder to quantify, Villavicencio said. "It also doesn't take into account the varying risk thresholds of the individual patients." Gawron pointed to a scenario like a ruptured membrane in the second trimester which greatly increases the risk of infection to the mother. "If the infection progresses to sepsis, the maternal life is absolutely at risk. But we can't say how long that will take or how severe the infection will get in that individual," she said.