“What actually counts as the life of the mother?” asks the physician Jennifer Jury McIntosh, a spokesperson for the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, an organization for obstetricians who handle high-risk pregnancies. “Is that her life today? Is that her life during this pregnancy? How close to losing her life does she have to be for us to decide to terminate? That feels really weighty, because my interpretation of what I feel is lifesaving—does that align with a particular prosecutor’s interpretation?” She told me that she feared situations in which not ending a pregnancy might constitute medical malpractice, but doing so might open her up to criminal prosecution. (She practices in Wisconsin, where nearly all abortions are now banned under a law passed in 1849.)

Worst-of-the-worst stories are beginning to surface in the press, an appalling countdown clock tick-tocking until Americans learn of the first woman who dies after being denied a termination since Roe was overturned. Media attention focuses rightly on those worst-of-the-worst cases, in which abortion is obviously lifesaving. In countless other cases, the circumstances will be murkier and stranger, but the elimination of the option of abortion will nevertheless do grievous harm.

As it would for me. My two pregnancies left me disabled, a word I am still struggling to come to terms with. They put my life at significant risk. Some of my doctors have made clear that they do not think I should bear a child again. Still, if I got pregnant, I would likely be forced to carry to term in much of the country, despite how sick I was, despite all the damage and pain I endured.