In the past week, Dr. Jennifer Conti has seen two patients who would be perfectly screwed if House Republicans had their way.

One, Conti told Vogue, was lied to at a crisis pregnancy center posing as an abortion clinic: told that her pregnancy was 12 weeks along when in fact she was 21 weeks in, and conveniently enough, just three weeks shy of California’s 24-week deadline on legal abortion. Probably, CPC staffers sought to run out the clock and obligate the patient to carry the pregnancy to term, Conti—a clinical assistant professor at Stanford University in obstetrics and gynecology and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health—explained.

The second woman, meanwhile, was in the 23rd week of a pregnancy she wanted very much when doctors diagnosed her with a serious heart condition that will require a transplant. Birthing a child would mean risking her life; she landed in Conti’s office just in the nick of time.

Later abortions are rare but not unheard of. “Whether it’s the life of the mother that’s in danger or the life of the fetus, whether [the patients] just didn’t realize they were pregnant until [they were] further along, or whether it’s other laws that are in place that affect their ability to access care sooner, there are so many reasons why women might be in a scenario wherein they need to access medically necessary and safe abortion care after 20 weeks,” Conti said, adding: “It’s really not for the politician to decide when that is.”

And yet politicians keep on trying. The latest effort comes Tuesday, when the House of Representatives votes on a bill that would not only ban abortion nationwide, 20 weeks after fertilization, but also criminalize procedures performed thereafter, with exceptions for instances where the life of the mother is at risk and in cases involving rape or incest. A direct challenge to the terms established by Roe v. Wade—abortion is legal until the fetus is viable outside the womb, a phenomenon medical professionals generally agree occurs around the 24th week of pregnancy—the so-called Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, or H.R. 36, isn’t likely to pass a Senate vote even if it does advance. (Similar bills failed in both 2013 and 2015.)