ProPublica writes here about the dilemma of doctors in Tennessee: The patient would die unles she had an abortion. There was no time to spare. But the state just passed a law to punish doctors who performed abortions. Should they let her die?

One day late last summer, Dr. Barry Grimm called a fellow obstetrician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to consult about a patient who was 10 weeks pregnant. Her embryo had become implanted in scar tissue from a recent cesarean section, and she was in serious danger. At any moment, the pregnancy could rupture, blowing open her uterus.

Dr. Mack Goldberg, who was trained in abortion care for life-threatening pregnancy complications, pulled up the patient’s charts. He did not like the look of them. The muscle separating her pregnancy from her bladder was as thin as tissue paper; her placenta threatened to eventually invade her organs like a tumor. Even with the best medical care in the world, some patients bleed out in less than 10 minutes on the operating table. Goldberg had seen it happen.

Mayron Michelle Hollis stood to lose her bladder, her uterus and her life. She was desperate to end the pregnancy. On the phone, the two doctors agreed this was the best path forward, guided by recommendations from the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, an association of 5,500 experts on high-risk pregnancy. The longer they waited, the more complicated the procedure would be.

But it was Aug. 24, and performing an abortion was hours away from becoming a felony in Tennessee. There were no explicit exceptions. Prosecutors could choose to charge any doctor who terminated any pregnancy with a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison. If charged, the doctor would have the burden of proving in front of a judge or jury that the procedure was necessary to save the patient’s life, similar to claiming self-defense in a homicide case.

The doctors didn’t know where to turn to for guidance. There was no institutional process to help them make a final call. Hospitals have malpractice lawyers but do not typically employ criminal lawyers. Even local criminal lawyers weren’t sure what to say — they had no precedent to draw on, and the attorney general and the governor weren’t issuing any clarifications. Under the law, it was possible a prosecutor could argue Hollis’ case wasn’t an immediate emergency, just a potential risk in the future.

Goldberg was only a month into his first job as a full-fledged staff doctor, launching his career in one of the most hostile states for reproductive health care in America, yet he was confident he could stand in a courtroom and attest that Hollis’ condition was life-threatening. But to perform an abortion safely, he would need a team of other providers to agree to take on the same legal risks. Hollis wanted to keep her uterus so she could one day get pregnant again. That made the operation more complicated, because a pregnant uterus draws extra blood to it, increasing the risk of hemorrhage.

Goldberg spent the next two days trying to rally support from his colleagues for a procedure that would previously have been routine.

Vanderbilt declined to comment for this article, but Hollis’ doctors spoke to ProPublica in their personal capacity, with her permission, risking backlash in order to give the public a rare view into the dangers created when lawmakers interfere with high-stakes medical care.

First, Goldberg and a colleague tried the interventional radiology department. To lower Hollis’ chance of bleeding, Goldberg wanted doctors to insert a special gel into the artery that supplied blood to her uterus to reduce its flow. But that department’s leadership didn’t feel comfortable participating.