Roe V Wade Overturned Supreme Court Overturns Landmark Abortion

By On Jun 27, 2022

In one of the most stunning reversals in the modern era of the Supreme Court, a majority of the Court overturned a nearly 50-year precedent in Roe v. Wade Friday and gave states the license to ban abortion, issuing a ruling in line with the draft opinion leaked in early May by Politico and paving the way for abortion to be largely outlawed in likely half of states.64%. That’s the share of Americans who said they did not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned, according to a NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll conducted in May, which is in line with other polls on the issue. Polling consistently shows most Americans broadly support legal access to abortion, though many are in favor of restricting it further into a pregnancy. States to start banning abortion immediately. Thirteen states have “trigger laws” that will take effect either with the Supreme Court’s decision, once a state official signs off or within a few weeks of the court’s ruling. Those laws—which will take effect in Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming—will ban abortion entirely, and most make performing the procedure a felony punishable by prison time. (Oklahoma’s law is taking effect despite the state already banning abortion entirely.) An additional five states have abortion bans in place from before Roe was enacted, though Michigan’s law has been blocked from being enforced in court and Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has said he won’t enforce that state’s law. The pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute projects 26 states will ultimately enact abortion bans with Roe no longer in place. How far beyond just banning abortion the decision will go. Abortion rights advocates have warned overturning Roe could have knock-on effects that could impact such other areas of reproductive rights as birth control and in vitro fertilization, as well as adversely impact people who have miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies and may now face additional challenges for getting care. Legal experts have also warned the court getting rid of Roe could open the door to other rights the court has upheld that aren’t expressly stated in the Constitution being struck down, such as same-sex and interracial marriage. The Mississippi case marked the Supreme Court’s biggest abortion case in decades, and came after Republican-led states passed a slew of abortion restrictions with an eye toward getting the issue back in front of the 6-3 conservative court. A number of states took increased action to restrict abortion even as the court was still deliberating in the case, with multiple states passing 15-week bans in line with Mississippi’s and Texas enacting a six-week ban that Idaho and Oklahoma have already copied. (Idaho’s ban has been blocked in court.