Sorry, Republicans. Exceptions to abortion bans don't make any sense.

Boston Globe

31-03-2025

For example, Democrats stressed the cruelty of Texas's abortion law during the 2024 presidential campaign, highlighting the experiences of women like Amanda Zurawski. She developed sepsis after physicians, worried about violating the law,
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On the other side, Republican lawmakers have been frantically attempting to clarify existing exceptions with a
amendments and new
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The reality is that today's abortion bans are
In the 19th century, it was physicians who led the fight to criminalize abortion. But these antiabortion activist physicians also expected courts to give them real discretion when interpreting statutory exceptions for the life of the mother — unlike what doctors can expect today.
In the past, courts often met physicians' expectations, interpreting the exceptions in ways that mostly protected physicians who acted in good faith to
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When states began reforming criminal abortion bans in the 1960s and after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, a very different antiabortion movement emerged. Its members were no longer primarily doctors. Indeed, the activists and religious leaders who mobilized before and after Roe
distrusted doctors, since in their view, some physicians used existing exceptions for the life of the mother to perform abortions for a wide variety of reasons.
That generation of antiabortion activists became convinced that life and health exceptions were just an excuse to let doctors do whatever they wanted. They pointed to Roe's companion case,
Depression and other mental health issues during and after pregnancy are all too real, but antiabortion leaders argued that anyone who wanted an abortion could fabricate a threat to her mental health. They wanted to stop doctors from using medical-emergency exceptions as a loophole for abortions.
So when Roe was overturned in 2022, abortion opponents built on the ideas of the 1960s to design bans that stripped doctors of as much discretion as possible. States no longer protect doctors who act in good faith; they
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And as exceptions have narrowed, penalties have increased. Now, most states with bans treat abortion as a major felony, subject to up to life in prison. The new bills purport to clarify the rules around exceptions, but they don't fundamentally change the current dynamic for doctors.
The word 'life-saving' was struck from the exception in Texas's bill, and a handful of conditions for which abortion could be allowed were listed. But Kentucky's bill claiming to 'clarify' exceptions instead stresses that any intervention
must
be life-saving, even if a patient is experiencing a miscarriage — and that physicians must use 'reasonable medical judgment' instead of good faith.
The problem is that medicine isn't straightforward. Pregnancy complications aren't limited to Republican lawmakers' lists of 'acceptable' conditions that warrant medical intervention. In many, many circumstances, physicians will still be risking lawsuits and prison time if they make a call antiabortion prosecutors don't like.
Exceptions will continue to be at the center of our political and legal conversations about abortion in red states. In all likelihood, women will continue to die or suffer serious harm as the laws hamstring doctors. Though the architects of abortion bans would prefer not to have to choose between protecting fetal lives at all costs and saving women's lives, if it comes down to it, we all know which lives they will choose.