And then they waited. For nine days, they barely left the house. Abbey spent most of the time curled up in bed. She felt what she thought were contractions and went to the hospital, but was told to come back the following day. Ten days after the injection, Abbey checked into the maternity ward. She was barely showing, unlike all the other fully distended mothers around her.

She was given a drug to accelerate the contractions and an epidural for the pain during labor. In contrast to the cries she and Kyle heard down the hall, their stillborn baby was silent. They held the 8-ounce infant wrapped in a pink blanket and cried. They were asked if they wanted a picture or handprint. No, thank you, they said, heading home to grieve.

Her name was Amelia. The date was August 3, 2012.

Seven months later, the Arkansas Legislature banned women from getting abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Abbey had been a day or two over that line when her pregnancy ended. The law includes exceptions for rape and incest victims and for health emergencies involving the woman, but not for fetal abnormalities.

Had the law been in place last year, Abbey would have had to continue an agonizing pregnancy, possibly for weeks, and any doctor willing to end it would have risked a felony charge. An early ultrasound and a blood test had detected nothing wrong. Abbey had asked for the second scan at 19 weeks, excited to find out the baby's gender, but the doctor's office urged her to wait a few days. Ultrasounds are typically done at 20 weeks to get a clear look at developing organs, especially the heart. It can take several days, even weeks, to schedule additional tests, weigh the results, and arrange for an abortion. There's only one clinic in Arkansas that provides second-trimester abortions, aside from some private hospitals.

Abbey, a nurse who comes from a conservative Christian family in Oklahoma, never labeled herself "pro-choice" or "pro-life." Now she pictures thrusting her sonogram and medical files at the lawmakers who voted for the abortion ban. "Would you let your own baby die slowly like that?" she would ask them. "If your wife was in these circumstances, would you force her to carry that baby?" She adds now, "I don't think I could have gone on any longer, and any woman who was forced to would have lost her mind."

Twelve states, as well as the House of Representatives, have voted to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks—the exact moment when some parents are just learning about severe or even fatal defects. Only Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas include exceptions for fetal impairment. And while these 20-week bans affect a tiny fraction of abortions—only 1.3 percent occur after 21 weeks, the benchmark used by the federal government—they predominantly target women who are carrying gravely impaired babies or whose pregnancies are putting their own health at risk. With very few exceptions, these are women who had every intent to carry their babies to term until forced, at five months pregnant, to make a swift and excruciating decision.