BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Senate Bill 1 is in the hands of the House now and will be considered by the Courts and Criminal Code committee.
That committee is expected to hear testimony from the public for one day.
"I love being a mom," said Elly Cohen as she and her husband, Arkady, read to their 4-year-old daughter, Ava, in their Bloomington home Monday night. "I would love to have another baby to get to do that again."
Cohen thought she was going to get that chance this year when she found out she was pregnant. At 17 weeks into her pregnancy, though, Elly and her husband found out the fetus had a chromosomal abnormality.
"It was a very high chance of it not surviving the pregnancy," said Arkady.
Even if it did, Cohen explained that doctors told her the child would likely die soon after birth, so the couple terminated the pregnancy.
Now, Cohen wants the chance to sit in front of Indiana lawmakers and tell them about her abortion.
"I think they need to know the real reasons why people choose to terminate pregnancies and to think about the bill, how SB1 is going to impact people and put faces to those stories and statistics that are getting thrown around," she said.
Now, SB1 has given Elly and her husband pause on trying to conceive again. They're worried about the same kind of issues coming up and not being able to terminate the pregnancy if SB1 becomes the law.
Also, a concern for the couple, is whether or not the way doctors are allowed to handle miscarriages, would change.
"I don't think it's a risk I'm willing to take," Cohen explained.
As SB1 stands right now, the main exceptions to the abortion ban are cases of rape, incest or when the mom's life is in danger, but there's another part that talks about ending pregnancies when the fetus has a medical condition that makes life outside the womb impossible.
13News spoke with a doctor who said the language in this part of the bill is vague. The Cohens think so, too.
"I think there's going to be a lot of questions about where do you draw that line of what is considered incompatible with life?" Cohen said.
With so many questions still unanswered and the bill now being considered by the House, Elly and Arkady are waiting, holding tight to Ava, realizing a family of three might be the way it stays.