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Ten states already ban abortions after 20 weeks post conception. That's a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which grants women the right to the procedure for several weeks after that until the point when a fetus is considered viable. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports that just 1.5 percent of all abortions take place that late in pregnancy.
JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: They may be few, but they can be among the most emotionally fraught. Six years ago, Christy Zink and her husband were thrilled to be expecting a second child. All seemed good until her ultrasound at 21 weeks. Her OB-GYN noticed something off, so Zink had an MRI. She was shocked to see the image of her baby's brain.
CHRISTY ZINK: It looked like there were, on one side, almost, like, splotches, like an abstract painting. It did not look like a brain.
LUDDEN: She says half the brain was basically missing. So were key central nerve fibers. Doctors said the baby would probably have near constant seizures and might have to live in a hospital.
ZINK: We did not feel like we wanted to bring a baby into the world whose life was going to be about pain and surgery and being hooked up to machines.
LUDDEN: Zink and her husband had little trouble getting an abortion where they live in Washington, D.C., but she would not be allowed one in most of the 10 states that now ban the procedure at 20 weeks post conception. Why 20 weeks?
MARJORIE DANNENFELSER: This is a point where the humanity of the unborn child is very, very clear.
LUDDEN: Marjorie Dannenfelser heads the Susan B. Anthony List, which seeks to ultimately end all abortion. She says there's good reason polls show majority support for these bans.
DANNENFELSER: Brothers and sisters of a baby that's 20 weeks look at the sonogram. They see the child moving around. Mothers read WebMD and it says you should be singing to your baby at this point, that she can hear melodies, she can feel rhythms.
LUDDEN: And she says the fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. The legislation is called the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, but most research disputes that, finding neural connections are not yet developed.
VICKI SAPORTA: So this whole bill is based on faulty science.
LUDDEN: Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation says it's really about politics.
SAPORTA: They are introducing bans in the states as early as six weeks. They're introducing them at 12 weeks. And they would like us to believe that a 20-week ban is therefore then reasonable. It is not.
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DEENA: Hi, thanks for calling the NAF hotline. This is Deena (ph). How can I help you today?
LUDDEN: The Federation gets 5,000 calls a week to its abortion hotline. Saporta says they hear from many women with no money for the procedure, so they put it off, which makes it even more expensive. Others don't realize they're pregnant until late, or are afraid to tell anyone. Dr. Warren Hern runs the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado.
WARREN HERN: One of the patients that I saw recently had been raped continuously by her half-brother, and who was many months pregnant when her mother discovered that she was pregnant, and they were all quite terrified.
LUDDEN: The girl was 13. Only Arkansas's ban allows someone in her situation to get an abortion after 20 weeks. The nine other states have no exception at all for rape. Hern says other women seeking later abortions struggle with substance abuse or mental illness or simply decide they are unfit to be a parent.
HERN: She's not prepared for that economically or educationally. She's been abandoned by her partner or she has no support from her parents, and she doesn't have the means to raise a child.
DANNENFELSER: Well, the vulnerable population that must be considered is the vulnerable child waiting to be born as well.
LUDDEN: Ban supporter Marjorie Dannenfelser says a woman's rights should not trump those of a fetus just to make her life easier.
DANNENFELSER: This debate revolves around a group of children who have nothing wrong with them, but the circumstances in their life beyond the womb are very difficult for the mother.
LUDDEN: Activists are pushing for 20-week abortion bans in at least three more states this year. A House panel in South Carolina approved one unanimously today. Jennifer Ludden, NPR News, Washington.