A wave of new abortion bans is taking effect in Republican-run states, but many of them contain an exception: An abortion can be performed if it’s necessary to save the life of the mother. In practice, however, that’s a far fuzzier line than it might appear.

The Biden administration wants to make sure that the exception is meaningful, and Republican states look like they’ll try to make sure it isn’t. Which means one key upcoming area of intense fighting over abortion will concern what happens in hospital emergency rooms and operating rooms.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), a strong contender for the wingnuttiest AG in all the land, has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s latest effort to establish that this exception is indeed meaningful. The lawsuit claims that the effort attempts “to use federal law to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.”

Paxton’s lawsuit is weak, to say the least. But it provides another indication where this is all headed......

“In Texas now, doctors have to worry that they will face homicide charges or be labeled as ‘murderers’ for acting to save a pregnant person’s health or life in severe emergencies,” Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told us. “Across the country, doctors who have largely been shielded from abortion politics are going to find that the criminal law is hanging over their shoulder.”