>>JR, I hate to start sentences with "my understanding", so take this for what it is worth - but my understanding is that in some religious hospitals, women get substandard care because of facility objections to methotrexate on spiritual grounds. This can mean alterations in therapy, transferring women to other facilities, etc. At the end of the day, it can mean exposing women to unnecessary risks. There's one study by a women's health journal back in 2011 that 3 of 16 Catholic health facilities supposedly refused to offer methotrexate.

The Catholic position re Methotrexate is that there isn't one. Meaning that providers and physicians follow their own conscience same as anybody else.

Just to turn it around a little: most ectopic pregnancies end in early miscarriage, but knowingly waiting for that is a huge risk for the mother. By ten weeks, the fallopian tube is at very high risk of rupture, causing hemorrhage and risking death. That's the risk if ectopic pregnancy is not diagnosed- by 10 weeks. Which is why most deaths from ectopic pregnancies are not caused by religious hospitals withholding Methotrexate which is useless once you're in trouble. Deaths mostly affect minority groups with limited access to pre-natal care. Reach that point and only urgent surgery can save you. Therefore access to pre-natal care and early diagnosis ought to be the focus if people are concerned about saving mothers' lives.

>>I follow these ridiculous "heartbeat/personhood" bills across the nation pretty closely and I think the concern from women's group has some merit. In some states, the legal definition does not cover ectopic pregnancies, leaving enough room for general concern on what is going to be interpreted later as "unlawful".

I posted a direct citation from the latest Ohio act. If the physician considers the mother's life or bodily function is at risk, the provisions do not apply. Which is always the case in an ectopic pregnancy IMHO. The laws seem directed at planned and scheduled abortions of viable fetuses, not situations where the fetus has 0% chance of survival and the mother's life needs to be saved. Do I detect a false premise argument? As I said before, I'm not supporting the Act, I'm just trying to navigate the junk science.