Help |
Site Map
|
Sightings
AS OF APRIL 4, 2022
Background
Changes to the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 raise the possibility that Roe v. Wade could be severely undermined — or even overturned — essentially leaving the legality of abortion to individual states. A reversal of Roe could establish a legal path for states’ pre-1973 abortion bans, as well as currently unenforced post-1973 bans, to take effect.
Many state lawmakers continue to consider and enact abortion bans that fly in the face of constitutional standards and Roe’s precedent in anticipation of an eventual lawsuit on such a ban coming before a Supreme Court hostile to abortion rights.
Some bans prohibit abortion under all or nearly all circumstances, a tactic widely viewed as an attempt to provoke a legal challenge to Roe. Several of this type of ban that were passed by states have been blocked by court orders and would require further court action to be enforced.
Other bans enacted after Roe are designed to be “triggered” and take effect automatically or by swift state action if Roe is overturned. Several states even have laws declaring the state’s intent to ban abortion to whatever extent is permitted by the U.S. Constitution, making their desire to halt abortion access in the state clear. A few states have amended their constitution to declare that it does not contain any protection for abortion rights or allow public funds to be used for abortion.
Meanwhile, policymakers in some states have approved laws to protect abortion rights without relying on the Roe decision. Most of these policies prohibit the state from interfering with the right to obtain an abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person.
Visit our state legislation tracker for policy activity on all sexual and reproductive health topics.
Highlights
- 23 states have laws that could be used to restrict the legal status of abortion.
- 9 states retain their unenforced, pre-Roe abortion bans.
- 13 states have post-Roe laws to ban all or nearly all abortions that would be triggered if Roe were overturned.
- 9 states have unconstitutional post-Roe restrictions that are currently blocked by courts but could be brought back into effect with a court order in Roe’s absence.
- 7 states have laws that express the intent to restrict the right to legal abortion to the maximum extent permitted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the absence of Roe.
- 4 states have passed a constitutional amendment explicitly declaring that their constitution does not secure or protect the right to abortion or allow use of public funds for abortion.
- 16 states and the District of Columbia have laws that protect the right to abortion.
- 4 states and the District of Columbia have codified the right to abortion throughout pregnancy without state interference.
- 12 states explicitly permit abortion prior to viability or when necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person.
Printer-friendly version
TOPIC
GEOGRAPHY
- Northern America: United States
- Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Related Content
Guttmacher Policy Review
*State Policy Resources: The Guttmacher Institute monitors and analyzes state policy developments—including legislative, judicial and executive actions — on a broad range of issues related to sexual and reproductive health and rights. These resources, on such issues as access to and availability of abortion, contraceptive services and sex education, are updated regularly to provide a comprehensive picture of the state policy landscape.
"I always contended that if not revealing my age would actually make me younger, I would be as tight-lipped as the enigmatic Mona Lisa; but since nothing can actually erase the years, why not just accept and admit them?... Above all, almost all my friends would submit to waterboarding before revealing their age, blissfully unaware that these days that statistic is available to anyone who makes a simple Google query or two. They don’t realize that the mere fact that they don’t know that identifies them as ancient and that exactly how ancient is no longer a secret. They believe they can guard that number to the bitter end — and beyond. No exaggeration. One woman I knew made her son vow not to put her date of birth on her headstone when she died." more »
“Dicynodont tusks can tell us a lot about mammalian tusk evolution in general,” says Ken Angielczyk. “For instance, this study shows that reduced rates of tooth replacement and a flexible ligament attaching the tooth to the jaw are needed for true tusks to evolve. It all ladders up to giving us a better understanding of the tusks we see in mammals today.” “Tusks have evolved a number of times, which makes you wonder how — and why? We now have good data on the anatomical changes that needed to happen for dicynodonts to evolve tusks. For other groups, like warthogs or walruses, the jury is still out,” says Christian Sidor, a curator at the University of Washington Burke Museum and one of the paper’s authors.
A more »
"The framers of the Civil War Amendments recognized that access to the ballot is a fundamental aspect of citizenship and self-government. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought to make the promise of those amendments real. To do so, it gave the Justice Department valuable tools with which to protect the right to vote. In recent years, however, the protections of the Voting Rights Act have been drastically weakened. The Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in the Shelby County case effectively eliminated the preclearance protections of Section 5, which had been the department’s most effective tool for protecting voting rights over the past half-century. Subsequent decisions have substantially narrowed the reach of Section 2 as well. Since those decisions, there has been a dramatic increase in legislative enactments that make it harder for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect representatives of their own choosing. Those enactments range from: practices and procedures that make voting more difficult; to redistricting maps drawn to disadvantage both minorities and citizens of opposing political parties; to abnormal post-election audits that put the integrity of the voting process at risk; to changes in voting administration meant to diminish the authority of locally elected or nonpartisan election administrators. Some have even suggested permitting state legislators to set aside the choice of the voters themselves." more »
"The ensuing seven years saw America serve with distinction in many theaters, including a second Mediterranean cruise in 1967 that included the Six Day War, and deployment in Vietnam in 1968. New Year’s Day 1969 found her back in Norfolk, Virginia. America would be deployed a second time to Vietnam in 1970, return to the Mediterranean in 1971, and deploy to Vietnam for a third time in 1972. NARA’s digitized logbooks for America currently end in 1973, when the carrier was anchored in Hong Kong Harbor." In 2019 the National Archives entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to digitize U.S. Navy and Coast Guard deck logs from vessels with Vietnam-era service (1956–78). The more than 200 million images will be used to validate the claims for those who served in Vietnam and establish service connection for disability benefits. The National Archives is making the digitized records available on Archives.gov, after images are transferred by the VA and screened for privacy concerns. more »
|
|