WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's ruling allowing states to set their own abortion laws will immediately halt the procedure in several states and thrust the issue of reproductive rights into this fall's midterm elections.
The decision will also put significant pressure on President Joe Biden — a late-comer to the modern abortion rights movement — to take steps to fortify abortion access, even though it is unclear what executive action is available to him.
Social conservatives who have been trying to reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling for decades promised to build on their efforts by pushing for abortion bans in every state or antiabortion legislation at the federal level, particularly if they make gains in Congress in November's elections. Former Vice President Mike Pence said social conservatives in the post-Roe era "must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land."
But Democrats warned the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization will risk the health of millions of women, particularly in the south, where abortion access is expected to be eliminated within months. They, too, emphasized the stakes of the midterms. Democrats expect the decision to boost their House candidates in suburban districts and particularly among women voters who support abortion rights.
The midterms "will determine whether Republicans can place cruel new restrictions on reproductive rights, ban abortion nationwide with no exceptions, criminalize abortion providers, and punish women," JB Poersch and Abby Curran Horrell, who run the two main political action committees supporting Democratic congressional candidates, said in a statement.
But historically, voters who cast their ballot based solely or largely on abortion are Republicans. Democratic voters who favor abortion rights have seldom made it their single-issue focus. The question now is whether that will change because the right to abortion has been stripped away. Democrats are confident that it will.
"It's one thing to talk about in abstract that Roe could be at risk — I've talked about it for years," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said before the opinion was announced. "This is the year that so many Americans who believed Roe was just part of the fabric of America and was never truly at risk come to terms with the reality that an extremist Supreme Court is willing to blow it up. That changes the dynamic at the ballot box."
Antiabortion advocates, however, say the Roe decision is merely proof of concept that social conservatives' voices and votes have finally paid off. Their message, now, is that they must build on the Dobbs decision by electing Republicans who oppose abortion.
"Voters will debate and decide this issue and they deserve to know where every candidate in America stands, including those who toe the Democratic Party line of abortion on demand without limits," said SBA Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser, whose group has been knocking on doors in eight states with key Senate races this fall, including Arizona and Georgia. "Federal as well as state lawmakers must commit to being consensus builders who advocate for the most ambitious protections possible."
The ruling also proved to the antiabortion movement and social conservatives that their trust in former President Trump paid off. Initially skeptical of the former president's antiabortion bonafides, the movement backed him when he promised during his campaign to appoint judges who opposed the Roe decision. His three appointees all signed onto the Friday decision.
"Thank you, President Trump, for keeping your word and putting good Justices on the Supreme Court," conservative radio host Erick Erickson tweeted.
The political fallout of the decision in Dobbs will be particularly acute in a handful of states.
Wisconsin, for instance, is the only state with a hotly contested Senate race that faces an immediate end to abortion access. The state's 1849 abortion ban was poised to go back into effect immediately after the court's decision Friday, banning the procedure except in cases to preserve the patient's life. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin had already stopped accepting new appointments for abortions before the decision was announced Friday, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Most of the places where abortion will be immediately banned are deep red states where Republicans are in power and face little risk of being unseated by Democrats who support abortion rights.
Bans will go into effect immediately in three states: Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota. The laws include exceptions for situations where the patient's life is at risk, but once-common exceptions for cases of rape and incest have been eliminated. Similar bans are slated to take effect in 30 days in Idaho, Tennessee and Texas.
Seven other states have bans that require some intermediary step before enactment, such as certification by the state's attorney general that Roe has been overturned: Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.
Other state bans are likely to follow, although many state legislatures have already recessed for the year. In some states with divided legislatures, contentious battles over abortion policy are likely in the months ahead.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats almost universally fell into their expected camps in support or opposition of the decision.
One outlier was Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., one of Congress's last self-described "pro-life" Democrats, who said he was "deeply disappointed" in the ruling, calling the Roe decision settled precedent. "I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans," Manchin said. He said he would support legislation "that would codify the rights Roe v. Wade previously protected."
At the White House, Biden is weighing executive orders he can take to protect abortion access, but any action would be fairly limited.
Democrats have called on Biden to issue orders that could remove restrictions to medication abortion or provide travel vouchers for women seeking an abortion outside their home state, but the White House has remained tightlipped about its plans.
"There's some executive orders I could employ, we believe," Biden told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel earlier this month. "We're looking at that right now."
Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, along with outgoing White House counsel Dana Remus and Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice have led White House efforts to meet with leaders of Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and other advocates since the draft decision was leaked last month.
Vice President Kamala Harris has also taken a lead role, meeting with state attorneys general, faith leaders, law experts and advocates over the last few weeks about what the administration could do to protect the millions of women living in states that ban or restrict abortion access once the expected decision was handed down.
Former President Trump told Fox News that the ruling "in the end ... is something that will work out for everybody." Asked if he played a role in the reversal, Trump said: "God made the decision."
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(Times staff writers Courtney Subramanian and Noah Bierman contributed to this report.)
