NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – The fight over Tennessee’s near-total abortion ban isn’t over.

A three-judge panel is now charged with deciding the merits of a legal challenge to the medical exception of the abortion ban.

This stems from a lawsuit brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of seven Tennessee women and two doctors. The lawsuit alleges the women were denied an abortion despite having life-threatening complications, which left many of them to go to other states to get medical care.

The plaintiffs in this case argue physicians are unclear when they can legally perform abortions on women facing serious medical emergencies. They want the judges to offer clarity on when the medical exception to this law can be applied.

“We are here today because Tennesse’s criminal abortion ban is endangering the lives of pregnant women across the state,” said Senior Counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, Linda Goldstein, during oral arguments.

Under current state law, it’s a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion in Tennessee with limited exceptions, like ectopic and molar pregnancies.

The law also allows for physicians to use their “reasonable medical judgment’ to decide whether the procedure will save the patient’s life or prevent major injury.

The plaintiffs argue this language is too vague and prevents doctors from performing abortions they say are necessary to save a mother’s life.

“This case is all about the chilling effect of the medical necessity exception on the conduct of physicians in the State of Tennessee,” Goldstein said.

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office pushed back on these arguments and said the law, as written, gives doctors leeway. Doctors are also not being restricted from performing abortions in instances that would save the mother’s life.

“A few doctors saying, as a matter of fact, that they are unclear about what serious risk might entail as an edge case does not show vagueness as a matter of law,” asserted Whitney Hermandorfer with the AG’s office.

Hermandorfer told the all-female three-judge panel the situations of the women suing were “tremendously unfortunate,” but that the plaintiffs haven’t provided a legal reason to block part of the law.

“Those types of policy questions are best left for decisions up the street at Cordell Hull in the Capitol Building,” Hermandorfer said.

While the judges cautioned anyone from reading into their questions, at one point, the judges questioned at what point the law says the risk to the mother’s life is significant enough to intervene.

“How does the physician who’s actually practicing know where that line is?” asked Chief Judge Patricia Head Moskal.

“Serious risk is not a foreign concept to doctors,” Hermandorfer responded.

During testimony over whether a temporary injunction – a pause on enforcing the aspects of the ban related to medically necessary abortions – one of the judges did question whether they can legally do what the plaintiffs are calling on them to do.

“You’re basically asking us to redline what the statute says,” said Chancellor Kasey Culbreath. “The big concern is that I’m not sure that we can do what you’re asking us to do.”

The judges said they will take time to review the case and the request for a temporary injunction and will issue a decision at a later date, but did not give specifics on when that might be.