Exemptions for the Health of the Mother

The New Yorker: A Choice in South Dakota:

Before Roe v. Wade, one of the states where it was commonly known that an abortion was easy to obtain was California, which had a model penal-code law that said that in order to get an abortion you had to have been raped or be in medical need owing to health complications. But, according to state law, “health” included mental health. So there were certain psychiatrists who would give a pro-forma sign-off on an abortion.

This is a good explaination of why exemptions for the health of the mother do not protect unborn children. While most people would like to believe that protecting the health of pregnant women is a good thing (which it indeed is), an exemption like this has a history of being a glaring loophole for continued legalized abortions. All a woman would need to do is get a doctor to sign a form saying her health was threatened--which would probably be fairly easy to do at an abortion clinic--and the abortion could continue legally.

I recommend reading the rest of the New Yorker article. It contains a lot of good facts covering both sides of this debate.