Global Courant
The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade — which happened a year ago Saturday — immediately ended nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights.
Just as quickly, it created a deluge of legal and political ramifications by empowering state governments and courts to decide how to regulate reproductive care for residents of their jurisdictions.
The result is a tapestry of laws that differ, often dramatically. That, in turn, has spawned a flurry of lawsuits, rulings, ballot measures, and proposed constitutional amendments all designed to regulate abortion care.
And the subsequent effect of all this on national politics has been enormous.
Here are five of the most profound state government trends to emerge in the United States in the year since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
Forbidden, forbidden, forbidden
Several abortion bans quickly took effect in the days — and sometimes seconds — after Roe was overturned.
So-called trigger bans went into effect in at least 13 states immediately or shortly after the 2022 ruling, though some have remained temporarily blocked in court. In nine, bans that predated the 1973 Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing a constitutional right to abortion, took effect immediately. (And in some cases, both went into effect.)
One such ban that predates Roe is a Wisconsin law – enacted in 1849 (months after Wisconsin joined the union) – banning abortion in almost all cases.
Other states have enacted new strict abortion bans in the months since the Dobbs decision. For example, Florida banned abortion at six weeks gestation, before most women even know they are pregnant, though it is temporarily blocked by a judge.
In total (if we take into account states where such bans remain blocked for now), more than a dozen have nearly completely banned abortion care or have run out of facilities where women can have abortions, according to a June 16 NBC News review of state laws.
Huge momentum for Democrats
Almost immediately, Democrats seized on the Dobbs ruling as a way to mobilize, woo, and impeach voters — particularly independents, but also women and suburban voters — who support abortion rights.
It was a prominent focus for Democrats in Senate, House and gubernatorial races in swing states across the country last fall. Many political observers said the strategy was in large part the reason the party retained the Senate, outperformed in House races, and won every swing state governor but one.
In many states, the anti-abortion issue forced Republican candidates to defend strict abortion bans following the Dobbs decision — and the issue remains a mystery to the GOP.
Earlier this year, liberals won a race for the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin by 11 percentage points, largely because of their candidate’s emphasis on her desire to overturn the state’s 1849 law and her conservative challenger’s reluctance to get involved at all with the issue of abortion.
Ballot box initiatives to promote protection against abortion
Similarly, abortion rights advocates also waged their political battle by holding ballot referendums last year that would enshrine reproductive rights in state constitutions.
Those advocates went on a string of victories, winning in all six states that owned them — even conservative states like Kentucky and Kansas.
Then reproductive rights groups — boosted by that perfect record last year — set their sights on planning citizen-led ballots that would enshrine abortion rights in the constitutions of 10 states this year and next.
While some efforts have stalled, many have not. In Ohio, for example, an initiative called Protect Choice Ohio has so far cleared all hurdles to put to the vote in November a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
The proposed amendment is designed to counter Ohio’s “heartbeat bill.” clicked back into place right after Roe was overthrown last summer. That law, which prohibits most abortions, remains temporary blocked by a state judge.
Vote for initiatives that would limit protection against abortion
However, those efforts have given way to counter-attempts designed to make it more difficult for reproductive rights advocates to change state constitutions.
Republican-led lawmakers in many of the same states have fought fierce battles to curb the ability of citizens and other lawmakers to cast ballots — a move that progressive groups say is explicitly designed to make it difficult to get voters in red and purple states direct say on important issues such as abortion rights.
In Ohio, the GOP-controlled legislature last month passed a series of measures that could make it more difficult to change the state constitution to protect abortion rights. Ohio voters will now go to the polls on August 8 to decide whether to increase the raise to 60% threshold value of support needed to pass ballots that change the state constitution. Currently only a majority is needed.
Reproductive rights groups claim the move is designed to make it more difficult for voters to pass the proposed pro-abortion amendment that will be voted on in November.
A focus on interstate care
Lawmakers in some blue states have said they have introduced abortion protections in recent months, not only for the benefit of their own residents, but also for residents of other states, particularly those in neighboring conservative states where newly enacted bans have taken effect.
This year, for example, Democrats in the Minnesota legislature moved to enshrine abortion rights into law — a measure that abortion rights advocates have touted as particularly crucial for pregnant women in neighboring states (such as Wisconsin, South Dakota, and North Dakota) where abortion became illegal following the Dobbs decision.
For months North Carolina had remained a haven for women seeking care; it was only one of two states in the wider South where they could have a legal abortion up to the 20th week of pregnancy. But a 12-week ban goes into effect July 1, after the GOP-controlled state legislature recently overrode a veto of the measure by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The enactment of the 12-week ban could make it impossible for many women in the region, who can afford to go only so far, to travel to receive abortion care.
As a result, Virginia will soon be the only remaining state in the region that has not narrowed access to abortion care in the past year.
The issue of interstate travel for abortion care became increasingly important after a man was arrested last year on charges of raping a 10-year-old girl, who became pregnant and allegedly traveled from Ohio to Indiana to have an abortion.
Nevertheless, some states are seizing every opportunity for such travel.
Idaho in April became the first state to pass a law explicitly barring some residents from traveling out of the state for such care. The new legislation made for a pregnant minor to have an abortion, whether through medication or procedure, in another state, punishable by years of imprisonment. In addition, laws in Oklahoma and Texas allow lawsuits against people anywhere in the US that help facilitate abortion within the borders of those states.
Meanwhile, in response to the possibility of sanctions by authorities in conservative states with abortion bans, other states have taken steps to protect physicians within their own borders who provide care to out-of-state residents.
That includes a law signed last month by Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo — one of the few Republican governors to have taken steps to codify abortion rights in recent years — protecting abortion rights for out-of-state patients seeking care in the state , but also for providers within the state.
