“Abortion bans with no health exception are horrible for women and for medical professionals. Oregon doctor Jennifer Lincoln referred to them as “not dead enough yet” rules. If a pregnant woman shows up at a doctor’s office or hospital with serious and potentially-but-not-yet life-threatening complications, doctors’ hands are tied.
Under such a paradigm, performing an abortion is illegal until it’s certain a woman’s life itself is in jeopardy. This leaves women in the terrible position of having to wait while their health worsens, knowing all the while that a (possibly much-wanted) pregnancy cannot continue and also that the longer they wait, the greater the chance of damage to their reproductive organs or other body parts. And steep penalties for performing an abortion outside of life-threatening emergencies may lead some doctors or health systems to be overly cautious from a liability perspective, further putting pregnant women’s health at risk.
Meanwhile, doctors are put in the position of having to either send women in such circumstances out of state if possible or simply watch and wait while their patient’s condition deteriorates.”