Which are the states with the most abortion restrictions?
Women’s rights in the US are under threat from the Supreme Court that looks set to overturn federal access to abortion with many states returning to bans.
The leaking of information surrounding the Supreme Court’s judgement on the continued legality of the landmark Roe v Wade case has been met with wide condemnation. If the judgement were to pass, tens of millions of women in the US would lose the right to safe abortions.
The US Supreme Court is expected to scrap Roe v Wade (which protects abortion rights).
— Novara Media (@novaramedia) May 5, 2022
Data from a Lancet study shows that in places with abortion restrictions, 75% of procedures are dangerous, incomplete or conducted by inexperienced personnel. pic.twitter.com/p9PLOKvDcq
The Supreme Court ruling in question, named Roe v Wade after the parties involved, determined that it was unconstitutional for a US government to excessively restrict abortion. This is at risk at being overturned, meaning the law in individual states would determine people’s access to abortion.
As it currently stands, 23 states would institute bans on abortion as soon as the Supreme Court passes judgement, accoridng to NBC News analysis of Center for Reproductive Rights data. If the ruling is that abortion is constitutional, then the state of play that exists today inside the framework of Roe v Wade will persist.
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What will happen if Roe v Wade is overturned?
The court is expected to hand down their official ruling on abortion rights in July. If the Mississippi ruling, to ban abortion after 15 weeks, is upheld then Roe v Wade would have to be struck down. Were this to happen, the decision over the legality of abortion returns to the individual states.
The states which would become the most dangerous for women seeking abortions will be those which have already legislated against Roe v Wade; the only thing preventing these laws from being implemented is the federal access to abortion. Also there are states never changed their individual state abortion law, so if the federal abortion law was overturned, it would revert to their state law, a ban.
An extremist Supreme Court is poised to overturn #RoeVWade and impose its far-right, unpopular views on the entire country. It's time for the millions who support the Constitution and abortion rights to stand up and make their voices heard. We're not going back—not ever.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 3, 2022
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According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organization, the states and territories that will immediately ban abortion on the Supreme Court ruling are: Alabama, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Guam, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
Other states and territories will have new restrictions on access to abortion. These are: Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.