I’m a family physician working in a Federally Qualified Health Center in Harlem. We regularly take walk-ins, especially for prenatal visits.

This particular patient, who I’ll call Christy, came in for a first-time prenatal visit at 20 weeks.

Christy was a 25-year-old African American woman who lived in North Carolina, but she had moved to New York to live with her aunt while she dealt with the decisions around this first, much desired pregnancy, which had been diagnosed with renal agenesis, a fatal condition where the kidneys are missing.

She wanted a second opinion to confirm the fatal condition and an abortion if she needed one. North Carolina already has a 20-week ban in place, hence the move to New York.

She was able to get coverage for her procedure at Planned Parenthood under New York state Medicaid, but imagine if the ban were a national law, and you had one week to make this decision.