GEOFF BENNETT: It has been four years since the U.S.

Supreme Court's Dobbs decision opened the door to state abortion bans.

Now a new study finds those bans are hurting women who aren't seeking abortions at all.

They're having miscarriages.

That's according to researchers at Oregon Health and Science University.

AMNA NAWAZ: Researchers found delays in miscarriage treatment increase the risk to a woman's health and fertility and prolong the grief of a lost pregnancy.

That weighs heavily on the doctors treating these women.

Special correspondent Sarah Varney traveled to Kentucky and Texas, two states with near-total abortion bans, to speak with OB-GYNs about how these laws are changing how they practice medicine.

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS, OB-GYN: You want to go outside?

SARAH VARNEY: Alecia Fields grew up in Kentucky.

After medical school, she and her husband, Marcus (ph), moved to New York for her residency in obstetrics and gynecology.

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS: There's me.

I had my first baby in residency.

SARAH VARNEY: After graduation, the family moved to this rural Kentucky community in June 2022.

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS: Hi.

BOY: Hi.

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS: How's your day?

BOY: Great.

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS: How you doing?

BOY: Good.

SARAH VARNEY: Her three boys know that their mom delivers babies.

But Dr.

Fields says practicing medicine here in Kentucky has changed since the state's near-total abortion ban went into effect almost four years ago.

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS: We had a case not that long ago where the patient had been seen, she had a really horrible pregnancy history of multiple previable deliveries and losses and preterm labor, and ultimately came in laboring, but she still had a pregnancy with a heartbeat.

And she was begging us to do something, to please make this just be done.

She knew that at 17 weeks a pregnancy could not survive on the outside.

And she was just stuck waiting.

And, ultimately, we were stuck waiting until she got infected and was sick enough to intervene and do something.

SARAH VARNEY: Under Kentucky law, physicians can perform abortions only when patients face death or permanent damage to a major organ.

There are no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or fatal fetal conditions.

How did you deal with watching this patient of yours be in pain and suffer?

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS: It really is difficult to sit back and feel like your hands are tied and that you can't help them.

You can't do anything.

You can sit with them, you can hold space with them, you can support them, but you can't do anything for them.

SARAH VARNEY: Doctors here face up to five years in prison and the loss of their medical license if they go against the ban.

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS: That's very terrifying and humbling as a physician to work so long and hard to get to this point in my career and finally be practicing.

And any sort of legal charge that would take that all away is scary.

I'm the sole income provider for my family.

They depend on me for everything financially and health insurance.

And so that that's a huge risk.

DR.

ANITRA BEASLEY, OB-GYN: We are practicing in a place where people are so, so, so scared.

And that's a terrible way to practice.

SARAH VARNEY: Eight hundred miles away in Houston, Dr.

Anitra Beasley feels that same dread.

The prison sentences here are steep, up to 99 years, and the threat of civil lawsuits by so-called bounty hunters.

DR.

ANITRA BEASLEY: So when you are saying, can this person have an abortion, you're not just thinking about, is it what this patient needs?

You may also be thinking about, what is this going to mean for me?

What does it mean if I make the wrong decision?

What if someone sues me?

Am I going to still be able to practice medicine?

Am I going to still be able to take care of my family?

Am I still going to be able to see my family?

Will I be in jail?

SARAH VARNEY: Dr.

Beasley grew up here, and today she lives in a leafy Houston neighborhood with her husband and three kids.

As an OB-GYN, she treats mostly poor and uninsured Texans.

DR.

ANITRA BEASLEY: They walk into the room and are unsure if they can trust the information that they are getting from their physician.

SARAH VARNEY: From you.

DR.

ANITRA BEASLEY: Right.

And so I might not be able to convince someone that I am trustworthy, simply because of the environment that we're in.

SARAH VARNEY: Republicans in the state legislature and the Texas Medical Board have attempted to clarify when physicians like Dr.

Beasley can intervene to prevent a medical catastrophe.

The board recently disciplined three Texas doctors who delayed giving medical care to two pregnant patients experiencing miscarriage.

The women died as a result.

DR.

CHRISTINA FRANCIS, OB-GYN: You know, I have to say, from the laws that I have read that are currently on the books, I think that they are actually very clear.

SARAH VARNEY: Dr.

Christina Francis says the confusion and hesitation experienced by Dr.

Fields and Dr.

Beasley is unnecessary.

She works at a hospital in Indiana taking care of women in labor or those hospitalized for pregnancy complications or emergencies.

DR.

CHRISTINA FRANCIS: I think the problem is that many doctors have not actually read the law or haven't talked to lawyers who are accurately interpreting what the law means.

SARAH VARNEY: We met her in Washington, D.C., where Dr.

Francis spends part of her time advocating against abortion as the head of the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs.

DR.

CHRISTINA FRANCIS: I wonder how many of these physicians that are afraid to act, has anyone told them that there have been -- Texas, for instance, has documented hundreds of terminations of pregnancy since their law went into effect for their life of the mother exception.

Not a single doctor has been charged or prosecuted because of their intervention in that situation.

SARAH VARNEY: I mean, they are reading the same laws that you're reading, and they're working in hospital systems that are interpreting this to mean, how sick do you have to be, that you couldn't get ahead of a sepsis infection, that you couldn't do an abortion until you had a fever of some amount, right?

DR.

CHRISTINA FRANCIS: So there's actually - - there's nothing in any law that says that a woman has to be a certain level of sick before you can intervene.

It says, in your reasonable medical judgment, if you think that this condition potentially poses a life... SARAH VARNEY: Death... SARAH VARNEY: ... potential?

DR.

CHRISTINA FRANCIS: Or poses a life-threatening risk to a patient.

SARAH VARNEY: It says to save the life of a woman.

DR.

CHRISTINA FRANCIS: Sure.

But there's... SARAH VARNEY: It doesn't say potential.

It doesn't say possible.

DR.

CHRISTINA FRANCIS: There's no time in medicine -- there's no other time in medicine in which we wait until someone is actively dying, if there was a time that we could intervene.

I mean, certainly, sometimes women come in and they're on the verge of death and you haven't had the opportunity to intervene.

But there's not another time in medicine or in law that dictates medicine where we interpret saving a patient's life to only mean intervening once they are on the verge of death.

SARAH VARNEY: Dr.

Anitra Beasley argues there are no laws that can account for all the complexities of pregnancy.

DR.

ANITRA BEASLEY: It's like if my house was on fire and the firefighters came in their truck and they connected their hoses and they had all the water and they had all of the equipment that they needed, and they just stood there and said, I can't help you.

That's what it feels like.

SARAH VARNEY: Dr.

Francis says she's never felt that way in Indiana.

DR.

CHRISTINA FRANCIS: Just my group alone, I don't know the exact number, but what patients that I can think of over the last few years, it's at least dozens of patients who we have intervened in a previable state because she was facing a potentially life-threatening complication.

And, again, we haven't even gotten a second look from the hospital, because, of course, we just do what we need to do to take care of our patients.

SARAH VARNEY: Dr.

Fields says she would love to do just that, but the laws in Kentucky have fundamentally changed how she's allowed to practice medicine.

Why have you chosen to stay?

DR.

ALECIA FIELDS: I think for every day that I have a hard scenario of one of these situations that I want to just like bang my fist against the wall, I have moments on the other side where I have those patients that are so appreciative of the fact that they have a reproductive health care provider in the state, in a rural area that's going to listen to them without shame, without guilt, and validate their experiences.

So that's why I stay, because they deserve access to good care.

SARAH VARNEY: Have you ever thought of leaving Texas?

DR.

ANITRA BEASLEY: I think everyone probably has.

It's really hard to practice medicine with your hands tied behind your back.

But this is where I'm from.

My home is here, my family is here, my community is here.

This is where I have built my life.

So, just packing that all up to go somewhere else and start over is difficult.

But, also, I care about my community.

SARAH VARNEY: For "PBS News Hour," I'm Sarah Varney in Houston.