 The Court settled on the three trimesters of pregnancy as the framework to resolve the problem.During the first trimester, when it was believed that the procedure was safer than childbirth, the Court ruled that the government could place no restriction on a woman's ability to choose to abort a pregnancy other than minimal medical safeguards such as requiring a licensed physician to perform the procedure.From the second trimester on, the Court ruled that evidence of increasing risks to the mother's health gave the state a compelling interest, and that it could enact medical regulations on the procedure so long as they were reasonable and "narrowly tailored" to protecting mothers' health.