Pain, as Colwill pointed out, doesn’t necessarily indicate something is unsafe, even though everyone wants to avoid it. But if abortion is banned, people could be taking abortion pills without much medical guidance, and the consequences could be more dire. Several states, including Oklahoma and South Carolina, already have laws on the books that can be used to prosecute people who self-manage abortion. Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University College of Law who studies abortion law, said that because states will find it hard to enforce abortion bans as long as pills can be mailed in discreet packages, more anti-abortion state lawmakers might consider making it a crime to use abortion pills or help someone obtain them.

If that happens, people could end up being prosecuted if they use abortion medications in a state where it’s illegal, particularly if they end up going to the hospital. Physically, there’s no way for medical professionals to be able to tell the difference between a pregnancy loss induced by abortion drugs and one that happened as part of a miscarriage, Grossman said. And the only way the difference would matter medically is if the patient had induced their abortion with some other substance like an herb concoction, rather than tested, FDA-approved meds.

But that’s not information people will necessarily know. In 2018, one group of researchers ordered abortion pills from 16 different websites and found that none of them came with instructions. Some people may make the mistake of telling medical staff about taking abortion meds — and then find themselves in legal trouble.