The phrase late-term abortion is everywhere lately. It’s not exactly new, but it’s lighting a wildfire of renewed controversy, thanks to comments from politicians that have led to inflammatory comparisons to infanticide. Naturally, people have a lot of questions, so we asked a board-certified ob-gyn to set the record straight.

The first thing you need to know: There isn’t actually an agreed-upon definition of what counts as “late”—that’s not how doctors talk about abortions. “In medicine we talk about pregnancy in terms of trimesters,” says Jennifer Conti, M.D., a board-certified ob-gyn, fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, and host of The V Word podcast.

This is important. Doctors base their decisions on a precise set of factors specific to each situation—the health of the fetus, the health of the woman, and the exact trimester and week of the pregnancy—not an arbitrary idea of what “late” means. “The way that they have crafted this language on the anti-choice side is strategic,” Dr. Conti says. “It’s meant to intentionally cause uncertainty; when we hear [‘late-term abortion’], we don’t know if that refers to a fetus that is periviable”—which is the very delicate gray area between 20 and 25 weeks of pregnancy when a fetus may or may not survive outside the womb—”or if you’re referring to the third trimester.”

That’s a massively important distinction, Dr. Conti says. Doctors treating a pregnant woman with serious complications at 30 weeks would likely consider a preterm delivery—not an abortion. “That’s a very different situation than 25 weeks pregnant, which is closer to what we traditionally think of as viability, where the fetus has a lower chance of surviving and an even lower chance of living a life that’s not severely impacted by medical conditions,” she says. The vague idea of “late-term abortion” is meant to “conjure up the image of someone in the throes of labor asking for an abortion and ‘evil’ abortion doctors coming and doing that,” she says. “That would never happen.”

The answer depends on where you live. Forty-three states prohibit abortions after a specified point in pregnancy (everywhere except Alaska, Colorado, Washington, D.C., New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont). But exactly when that point is varies by state.

24–28 Weeks

Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming

Twenty-three states ban abortions after viability outside the womb—which providers say falls between 24 and 28 weeks. There are exceptions—endangerment to the woman’s life or health, cases of rape or incest, and fetal abnormality—but these also vary by state.

While most states define the cut off vaguely as viability, five states (Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, and Pennsylvania) draw the line at 24 weeks. (Virginia bans abortions in the third trimester, which begins at 27 weeks.)

20 Weeks

Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Nineteen states ban abortion after 20 weeks, which is before what medical experts have deemed the point of “fetal viability.” This is somewhat confusing since 20 weeks isn’t a significant milestone in fetal development, according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Instead, many of these laws are based on concerns about “fetal pain,” but experts say pain is not possible at that stage of fetal development.

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