Two months after the Dobbs ruling, new abortion bans are taking hold

August 23, 2022
Sarah McCammon

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week marks two months since the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision reversed decades of precedent guaranteeing abortion rights, and the effects of the decision are continuing to unfold as abortion bans take effect around the country.

Well before the opinion was issued on June 24, more than a dozen states had so-called "trigger bans" in place – laws written to prohibit abortion as soon as Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had legalized the procedure for nearly 50 years, was overturned.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/23/1118846811/two-months-after-the-dobbs-ruling-new-abortion-bans-are-taking-hold

Some states move quickly to ban abortion after Supreme Court ruling

By Tierney Sneed, CNN
Fri June 24, 2022

Now that the Supreme Court has given the green light for lawmakers to prohibit abortion, several states, most of them Republican-led, have taken quick steps to do so. In at least seven states, state officials say that abortion bans can now be enforced.

Three states -- Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota -- have so-called "trigger bans" that went into effect automatically with the Supreme Court's reversal Friday of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that had established a constitutional right to an abortion. Ten other states have trigger bans with implementation mechanisms that occur after a set period or after a step taken by a state government entity.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/24/politics/abortion-ban-states-move-quickly/index.html

24.06.2022

USA – What triggers the ‘trigger laws’ that could ban abortions?

June 7, 2022
Naomi Cahn, Professor of Law, University of Virginia

The Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion on abortion rights dramatically declares that “the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

A number of states have already made their choice in case that happens, either protecting the right to abortion or significantly restricting abortion under most circumstances. Some states never removed bans they had in place before 1973. That’s the year of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade declaring that the Constitution protects the right to obtain an abortion.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/what-triggers-the-trigger-laws-that-could-ban-abortions-184361

07.06.2022

State Courts Could Overturn Abortion Bans in Red States

May 27, 2022
Christine Vestal

If the federal right to abortion is erased by the U.S. Supreme Court in a few weeks as expected, the legal spotlight will shift immediately to state courts, where experts say judges in some conservative states could surprise everyone and uphold the right to abortion.

“Hundreds of attorneys for abortion advocates across the country are no doubt poised to go into state courts to block enforcement of multiple state abortion laws the minute the decision comes down,” said Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel at Americans United for Life, which opposes abortion. “There will be attempts in all but a few states to create the equivalent of Roe v. Wade.”

Continued: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/27/state-courts-could-overturn-abortion-bans-in-red-states

How outlawing abortion could worsen America’s maternal mortality crisis

By Priya Krishnakumar and Daniel Wolfe, CNN
Tue May 10, 2022

(CNN) Dr. Judette Louis recalls a time when she treated a patient who was hemorrhaging from her pregnancy — and how she had to wait to obtain permission before she was allowed to terminate the pregnancy for the health of the mother.

"I was standing there watching her hemorrhage out, waiting for permission to do the termination. It is a disgusting feeling. It is a sad feeling. And you're sitting there literally watching her blood pressure going down while you're waiting for permission," the Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of South Florida told CNN. "It's just sad to now know if [Roe] really is overturned, that that will be happening all over across the country where [terminating a pregnancy] won't even be a possibility for a lot of states."

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/10/us/maternal-mortality-roe-wade-abortion-access/index.html

USA – The next frontier for the antiabortion movement: A nationwide ban

Advocates and some GOP lawmakers have started mobilizing around potential federal legislation to outlaw abortion after six weeks of pregnancy

By Caroline Kitchener
May 2, 2022

Leading antiabortion groups and their allies in Congress have been meeting behind the scenes to plan a national strategy that would kick in if the Supreme Court rolls back abortion rights this summer, including a push for a strict nationwide ban on the procedure if Republicans retake power in Washington.

The effort, activists say, is designed to bring a fight that has been playing out largely in the courts and state legislatures to the national political stage — rallying conservatives around the issue in the midterms and pressuring potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates to take a stand.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ban-roe-supreme-court-mississippi/

USA – The New Abortion Restriction No One is Talking About

Anti-abortion laws have traditionally allowed an exception to protect the “life of the mother.” Not anymore.

Opinion by MICHELE DEMARCO
04/28/2022

In 1942, my grandmother lay in a hospital bed in center city Philadelphia waiting to die. She was 26 years old, happily married, and pregnant with her first child. Only something went horribly wrong in the last trimester, and suddenly, both she and the baby were in a fight for life.

My grandfather, distraught but resolved, begged the attending physicians to do whatever it took to save my grandmother’s life, even if that meant the life inside her wouldn’t survive. But in those days that wasn’t always the practice; this was also a Catholic hospital, which forbade such a practice because it was considered tantamount to abortion. My grandfather was told she would be kept comfortable, and they would monitor both mother and baby, but that nothing would be done to privilege her life over that of their unborn child. In the end, my grandmother pulled through — barely — but sadly, the baby did not.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/28/the-new-abortion-restriction-no-one-is-talking-about-00028171

There’s No Knowing What Will Happen When Roe Falls

At the state level, countless factors will converge to produce unpredictable results.

By Rachel Rebouché and Mary Ziegler
APRIL 25, 2022

Everything about the American abortion war has taken on an air of inevitability. The Supreme Court will reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion decision establishing a constitutional right to end a pregnancy. The United States will divide along expected lines, with abortion broadly accessible in blue states and all but entirely criminalized in red states.

This narrative is not completely wrong. Twelve states have passed so-called trigger bans that will outlaw all or most abortions if Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey are overturned. At the same time, 16 states and the District of Columbia have policies guaranteeing abortion rights no matter what the Supreme Court decides.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/abortion-access-states-scotus-roe-casey-reverse/629579/

25.04.2022

Featured

Opinion

Mary Ziegler

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Overturning Roe v Wade would be an unprecedented attack on the bodily autonomy of women, girls, and pregnant people

BMJ 2022; 377 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o1019 (Published 21 April 2022)
Terry McGovern, Harriet and Robert H. Heilbrunn professor and chair

Any erosion of Roe v Wade will have devastating health outcomes that are likely to widen existing healthcare inequalities, says Terry McGovern

This year Americans’ right to access abortion hangs in the balance, but the scales seem tipped against it. The statements put forward by the majority of the US Supreme Court in the Dobbs v Mississippi case, a direct challenge to Roe v Wade, indicate that they are likely to overturn or seriously curtail this almost 50 years’ old legal precedent. In anticipation of this ruling, Oklahoma passed a near total ban of abortion earlier this month, making it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $100 000. Despite the US having majority public support for preserving the rights of pregnant people to seek an abortion,1 the Supreme Court looks likely to revoke this constitutional right in June. Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1019

21.04.2022

Commentary

Featured

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

How California Created The Nation’s Easiest Abortion Access — And Why It’s Poised To Go Further

By Kristen Hwang | CalMatters
Apr 21, 2022

By this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court will issue a decision on the most consequential challenge to Roe v. Wade since the landmark ruling in 1973 guaranteed the constitutional right to obtain an abortion.

If federal abortion protections are eliminated or severely weakened— as legal experts expect — a cascade of absolute bans will follow in more than a dozen states. Already, six more states are considering so-called “trigger bans” in the lead-up to this summer’s decision, while dozens of other state legislatures are considering 15-week bans, abortion pill bans and bans modeled after Texas’ controversial law that allows private citizens to sue anyone who helps someone obtain an abortion after six weeks.

Continued: https://laist.com/news/health/how-california-created-the-nations-easiest-abortion-access-and-why-its-poised-to-go-further