Two New Orleans doctors appeared in a "60 Minutes" episode that aired Sunday night regarding high maternal mortality rates in the U.S., a trend that the health care providers said they worry could worsen in areas with strict and legally unclear abortion bans. 

Dr. Rebekah Gee, an OB-GYN and former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health, and Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department, discussed Louisiana's troubling maternal mortality data, where rates are reportedly among the highest in the country. 

"I am more likely to die than my mother was in childbirth," Gee told 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. "So as a country, our outcomes are getting worse." 

Both Gee and Avegno pointed to recently enacted abortion bans as a source of further concern and confusion among physicians and pregnant people.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in June 2022, Louisiana implemented a sweeping abortion ban that threatens physicians who provide illegal abortions with possible prison time, among other penalties. Louisiana's law prohibits abortion in nearly all circumstances, unless the mother’s life is at risk or the pregnancy is “medically futile.” There are no exceptions for victims of rape and incest.

Gee and Avegno told 60 Minutes that some health care providers fear treatments for those with problematic pregnancies or miscarriages could be viewed as providing illegal abortions, despite it being considered standard care in other states. Regardless of the ban's intent, the Louisiana doctors say it's already having a chilling effect on the level of care some physicians are willing to provide their expecting patients. 

"We take an oath to do no harm, and that's really our north star as a physician," Avegno told 60 Minutes. "But when the prospect of doing that might cause you to be brought up on criminal charges … that's a really difficult place for our physicians to be."

You can watch the full 60 Minutes report, "The Domino Effect," here.