After the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade reversal, state government officials across the country have responded to the ruling with statutes and codes.
The high court reexamined the landmark 1973 abortion decision in the Mississippi-based Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, in which five of the nine Supreme Court justices voted the right to abortion wasn’t constitutionally protected.
In turn, the 1973 decision was overruled, returning the power of abortion regulation to the states, according to the Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
Though announced recently, the court’s draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked in a May 2 POLITICO article.
In addition to Roe, Alito pointed out the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey case, in which the Supreme Court limited state abortion restrictions imposing an “undue burden” on those seeking abortion procedures, according to the Supreme Court Oyez archive.
An undue burden is a policy or restriction that poses an insurmountable block to a patient seeking an abortion of an unviable fetus – a fetus that will not continue to develop or survive upon birth independently – according to the Cornell Legal Information Institute undue burden webpage.
Such blocks include a wife having to inform her husband of a planned abortion, according to the same webpage.
Mississippi’s subsequent ban on abortion begins at conception with exceptions including danger to the mother’s life or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality, according to a July 5 PBS NewsHour article.
Abortion was banned in the state because of an abortion-restricting “trigger” law implemented in 2007 that would go into effect if Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to a July 5 POLITICO article.
There were 13 U.S. states including Mississippi that had trigger laws preexisting the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, according to a June 6 Guttmacher Institute article.
The Guttmacher institute is a sexual and reproductive health and rights policy and research organization, according to its website.
The states that had trigger laws in place include: Wyoming, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, South Dakota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Idaho and Arkansas.
Many of those states have since banned abortion at conception as of July 11, including: Texas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Mississippi, according to a state abortion law-tracking map by The Guardian.
Kentucky and Utah had trigger laws in place but judges in the states blocked the bans from going into effect, according to the same The Guardian map.
Abortion was limited to 18 weeks in Utah under a separate ban and Kentucky voters will decide in November if abortion is ensured in the state’s constitution, according to the The Guardian infographic.
About 23.5 million people of childbearing age have been banned or severely restricted in abortion access while 16.3 million currently have access threatened in their residing states, according to the infographic by The Guardian.
President Joe Biden established an executive order on July 8 that would protect the abortion medication Mifepristone, invigorate public reproductive health education efforts, secure patient privacy and build a legal response for those looking to provide and obtain abortion procedures, according to a July 8 CNN article.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in response to Biden, clarified that pregnant people who necessitate life-saving abortions can acquire one as emergency medical care regardless of state bans or restrictions, according to a July 11 HHS news release.
An estimated 26.5 million people of childbearing age live in states where abortion is protected, according to the same infographic.
However, abortion can only be federally protected if Roe is codified by Congress, according to the CNN article.
