Nearly 100 days after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion care, more than a dozen states have effectively outlawed or severely restricted access to abortion.
A staff analysis from the House Oversight Committee reports that Republicans in Congress last year introduced 52 bills to outlaw or restrict abortion nationwide, including 16 bills that would criminally prosecute providers, and four bills that would prohibit interstate travel for abortio care.
The analysis – released during a committee hearing on the far-reaching consequences of abortion bans on 29 September – found that 179 House Republicans support banning abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant, and 167 House Republicans support fetal “personhood”, which assserts that fetuses, embryos and fertilised eggs have full protections under the law.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has introduced a proposed nationwide ban on abortion care at 15 weeks of pregnancy, which would “take away reproductive freedom from nearly 64 million women across the country – roughly twice the number impacted by current state restrictions,” according to the committee’s analysis.
At least 13 states – Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia – have outlawed abortion in nearly all instances since the 24 June decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Temporary restraining orders have blocked anti-abortion laws in North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming while their legal challenges play out in court.
Georgia and Ohio have outlawed abortion at roughly six weeks of pregnancy.
“The Supreme Court’s extreme decision ... was the culmination of decades of Republican efforts to strip away the fundamental right to abortion,” committee chair Carolyn Maloney said in a statement accompanying the report.
“Make no mistake, Republicans have no intention of stopping until abortion is banned in every state,” she said.
Anti-abortion lawmakers applauded the Supreme Court ruling, which struck down precedents established by Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, for returning the issue of abortion rights to individual states.
But lawmakers are advancing national bans on abortion care despite agreeing that the issue should be left to state lawmakers; Senator Graham’s bill also would supersede state-level abortion rights measures that have enshrined the right to abortion care.
Senator Graham’s legislation contradicts statements he made defending abortion as a “states’ rights” issue in the weeks after the Dobbs decision, which has drawn widespread criticism from Democratic officials and the White House.
