The state’s trigger law carries a maximum 15-year prison term and a $200,000 fine for a physician found guilty of providing an illegal abortion. Since the law took effect, doctors have described an environment of fear and anxiety in Louisiana hospitals over providing abortions that had been routine care before the law took effect.
“Of course, medical professionals don't want to risk prison or hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for making the wrong call,” said Ben Crump, a civil rights litigator and Davis’ attorney.
State Sen. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe), who authored the law criminalizing most abortions, released a statement this week claiming Woman’s Hospital had misinterpreted the near-total ban and now “has clarity regarding this exception and is correctly interpreting the law.”
Crump told reporters that the law is “clear as mud.”
He said Davis’ experience proves Louisiana’s anti-abortion laws are “vague and confusing”.
"By imposing themselves between Ms. Davis and her doctors, Louisiana lawmakers inflicted unspeakable pain, emotional distress and physical risk upon this beautiful mother, this loving mother,” Crump said. "They replaced care with confusion, privacy with politics, options with ideology.”
Crump said he’s received calls from people in similar situations to Davis, and that lawyers are considering the next legal step in Davis’ case.
Davis is planning on receiving her abortion from a North Carolina clinic next week.
This story was produced by WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana, one of our partners in the Gulf States Newsroom. The Gulf States Newsroom is a collaboration that also includes Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama and NPR.
