An Idaho district court heard arguments this week in a case brought by four women over the state’s abortion ban. The women say they have been denied emergency health care because of laws that provide few exceptions for abortion.

These bans allow doctors to perform abortions to prevent the death of a pregnant woman, but not to preserve her health. This lawsuit, filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, seeks to clarify and expand medical exceptions in laws to also include cases where a woman’s health or safety is also at risk.

Doctors who testified Thursday described how the lines drawn in Idaho’s bans are confusing.

“Doctors have never been trained to wait to avoid a patient’s death — that’s just not how we’ve been trained,” said Dr. John Werdel, an obstetrician-gynecologist at St. Luke’s Health System in Boise. “We have been trained to intervene early to try to prevent complications that could arise later. And waiting until the end or until someone is sick just doesn’t work for us – it’s not right.

“It is simply impossible for us to know whether treatment or non-treatment will result in death or simply worsening of the disease, loss of fertility or a number of other complications,” said Dr. Ali Raja, vice -chairman of the emergency medicine department at Massachusetts General Hospital. , who was called as a witness for the plaintiffs.

The state of Idaho, on the other hand, has argued that its bans on abortion are clear.

But the plaintiffs said doctors, facing uncertainty and possible lawsuits, were referring patients out of state. The women in this case sought treatment for nonviable pregnancies in Oregon and Washington.

The trial continues next week.

The legality of abortion in the Mountain West remains a patchwork after the November elections. Voters in Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and Montana chose to guarantee varying levels of access to abortion by amending the state constitutions, while abortion is restricted or almost completely banned in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliated stations in the region. . Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Public Broadcasting Corporation.