One of the challenges I have in writing about problem pregnancies is finding a way to share my experiences that doesn’t violate the privacy of any of the partners I’ve had in my life, and there’s no simple way around that problem. This isn’t a matter of shame or anything like that, but more a recognition that it’s really not my right to decide for someone else what is shared with the world.

I think I can say, however, that I’ve experienced two ectopic pregnancies, one of which involved a ruptured tube, a life threatening situation requiring urgent medical attention. I’ve also experienced enough “ordinary” miscarriages that I honestly lost count. One way I deal with trauma is a kind of aggressive forgetfulness. I push things so far down that the details are no longer easily accessible.

These incidents involved wanted pregnancies and began with celebration after a positive pregnancy test. In some cases, this was quickly followed by a concerning quantitative human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) test. This test measures the level of HCG in a pregnant woman’s blood, and it’s supposed to go up at predictable levels as pregnancy proceeds. If it doesn’t, it means something is wrong. If the embryo implants in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus (an ectopic pregnancy), the HCG level will show up as too low. To be clear, an embryo that begins to develop in the tube will not survive, but it will continue to grow for a while, which is what causes a tubal rupture. Women have two tubes, so the loss of one doesn’t preclude a future successful pregnancy, although it does lower the odds somewhat.

For those men who haven’t experienced it, it’s hard to describe the agony a woman experiences when she loses a wanted pregnancy. There are feelings of loss, inadequacy and emptiness. A deep, abiding depression is not uncommon. When you love a woman who is suffering in this way, all you want to do is protect them. If people need to be notified that the pregnancy was lost, that’s something you’re eager to do yourself so she doesn’t have any extra burden. You don’t want people asking the wrong questions, making hurtful (if unintentional) remarks.

The idea that your wife might be considered a potential suspect in a crime can arouse a murderous rage. The very suggestion that some outside entity might come making inquiries about the circumstances of the miscarriage is so far outside the realm of what is acceptable that it can’t really be adequately described.

This feeling of grief and protectiveness is the foundation of the privacy right. When a pregnancy does not result in a live birth, who is supposed to investigate that? How could they investigate it without asking prying questions?

Beyond this, however, there’s now a problem I never had to contend with. What if my partner hadn’t received prompt medical care when her tube ruptured? There is a good chance she would be dead. That’s a more likely outcome today because lawyers are worried that medical providers will be accused of providing an illegal abortion if they prematurely intervene to end an ectopic pregnancy. I have trouble understanding why this is a problem since an ectopic pregnancy can never result in a live birth, but it’s the world we’re living in now in many states.

According to Caroline Kitchener at The Lily, unsure doctors [in Texas] are already turning away ectopic pregnancies lest they be legally liable. Rachel Lachenauer, the director at the National Abortion Federation (NAF) hotline, told Kitchener that a South Texas woman diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy was refused an abortion by her doctor. Told to go to the emergency room, she was advised to seek help out of state. The patient ended up driving 15 hours to New Mexico for life-saving treatment after no one in Texas would help her. These cases are only going to grow until the law is either repealed or clarified. Under the current text, any doctor who removes an ectopic pregnancy that is not actively causing the patient to bleed to death faces dire consequences.

You might notice that I have so far not mentioned abortion once, which is the ostensible target of these laws. That’s intentional because what I want to demonstrate is that you can’t outlaw abortion without endangering women’s health and without tormenting women (and their partners) who have experienced wanted pregnancy loss.

You may have opinions about when abortion is justified legally or morally that differ from my opinions, but you don’t have to be a strong supporter of reproductive choice to see how the implementation of restrictions will inevitably cause massive, unnecessary suffering. For half a century, this country operated with the understanding that basic decency (properly understood as a privacy right) trumped the state’s right to investigate pregnancy loss. It was the right way of doing things, predicated on a proper understanding of the competing moral demands at play.

The very last thing a woman who has lost a pregnancy should be asked to do is to explain and defend herself.