Doctors who perform emergency abortions in Tennessee are shielded from losing their medical licenses or suffering other discipline, a panel of three judges ruled on Oct. 17.
Tennessee’s 2022 abortion ban enables criminal charges against doctors who perform abortions, with exceptions for certain scenarios such as when physicians determine abortions are required to “prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
Seven women sued the state, saying they could not obtain “medically necessary abortions” because the ban contained vague language.
The judges assigned to the case agreed. In the new ruling, they wrote that the law is likely unconstitutionally vague, with the lack of clarity “evidenced by the confusion and lack of consensus within the Tennessee medical community on the circumstances requiring necessary health- and life-saving abortion care,” they said….