Hospitals and doctors are struggling to toe the line between providing life-saving measures for women and wading into a legal gray area that’s emerged in the absence of abortion rights.
In the weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked, a pregnant woman visited Katie McHugh, a gynecologist and abortion provider in Indiana. The patient, who was between eight and 12 weeks pregnant, was bleeding and cramping. An ultrasound showed that a miscarriage was inevitable, but the woman had to cross state lines for treatment because her doctors in Kentucky refused to terminate the pregnancy.
That's because Kentucky is one of 22 states that had trigger laws to ban abortion in all or most cases when Roe was overturned. And in those states, physicians who violate the law can be prosecuted for a felony and face fines up to $100,000 and years in jail.
