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20 Weeks Pregnant Could Mean 22 Weeks Pregnant, Depending On Who You Ask

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Anyone who followed the heated debate on Texas’ new abortion legislation knows that 20 weeks is now the latest a woman can get an abortion. But the medical community says their definition of 20 weeks is different from the new law's definition.

As NPR’s Julie Rovner reports, the legislation pegs the beginning of pregnancy at fertilization, but doctors have always calculated pregnancy age from the first day of a woman’s last menstrual period. So while a woman may be 20 weeks pregnant in the eyes of this newly signed law, a doctor would consider that same woman about 22 weeks along.

Courtney Collins has been working as a broadcast journalist since graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2004. Before coming to KERA in 2011, Courtney worked as a reporter for NPR member station WAMU in Washington D.C. While there she covered daily news and reported for the station’s weekly news magazine, Metro Connection.