Shanae Smith-Cunningham arrived at Memorial Regional Hospital on Dec. 21, 2022 — five days after her water broke, only halfway through her pregnancy. Despite her pleas for treatment and the risks to her health, staff at the Hollywood, Fla., hospital turned her away amid the state’s new abortion restrictions.
The decision to send Smith-Cunningham home put her life in peril, health officials later determined
Even if they’re hesitant to do that, in the states with any kind of abortion ban, the standard of evidence for any of the exceptions to apply and the delays in processing means that no doctor or patient can safely make that call before it’s too late, effectively making the ban total.