Abortion will immediately become illegal in at least 13 states after the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and more will likely quickly follow suit.
Why it matters: The Supreme Court's Friday ruling grants states the legal authority to ban the procedure at any point in pregnancy — including at fertilization.
Where it stands: With the court's ruling to ultimately overturn the precedents that established the constitutional right to an abortion, a patchwork of state laws will now govern the procedure.
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, abortion is immediately banned in Idaho, North Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.
- Wyoming is the 13th state to pass a "trigger law" — an abortion ban that will take effect shortly after the court overturns its precedents.
- Four states — Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia — have amended their state constitutions to prohibit any protections for abortion rights.
- Oklahoma state lawmakers passed a bill in late April that would modify the language of the trigger law to ban abortions if the court “overrules in whole or in part” Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
- Several other states don't have trigger laws in place but will likely move quickly to ban or tightly restrict the procedure now that the court has cleared the way: Florida, Indiana, Montana and Nebraska would be prime candidates, according to analysis from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research organization.
- Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and South Carolina have all enacted restrictive laws that were then blocked by federal courts. They will likely try to revive those policies in a post-Roe world.
At least nine states have pre-Roe abortion bans still on the books, but those would not immediately take effect in the disappearance of Roe, Elizabeth Nash, a lead state policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, told Axios back in October.
- "It would take some kind of action," Nash said, such as an attorney general issuing an opinion, a state filing a court case, etc.
- For some states, it "might" even be easier to pass a new law prohibiting abortion instead of starting the process to make a pre-Roe ban take effect, Nash noted.
Yes, but: At least 16 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws that automatically keep abortion legal even with Roe overturned.
- Colorado in March became the latest state to codify the right to have an abortion. Abortion-rights advocates in the state are considering pursuing a ballot measure in 2024 to enshrine abortion access in the state's constitution.
- In Vermont, where abortion access is already guaranteed, lawmakers have advanced an amendment, which voters will decide on in November, that would protect the right to get an abortion under the state's constitution — which could make it the first state to do so.
Zoom in: In New Mexico, which is a Democratic stronghold, there is no law that explicitly protects abortion rights, but it is protected by state Supreme Court precedent.
- "Overall, given the political climate and the precedent, ... New Mexico definitely, at this moment, is one of the more protected states," Jessica Arons, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, told Axios.
- There are other states, like Florida and Kansas, where abortion rights are protected under precedent, but considering those states' conservative compositions, these decisions could be or are in the process of being challenged.
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