Story at a glance
- The Supreme Court issued a final ruling on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on Friday, overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
- Roe v. Wade is the 1973 decision that protected a person’s right to an abortion at the federal level.
- The ruling now means that states have all the power in deciding when and if a person can access an abortion.
On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark piece of legislation that made access to an abortion a federal right.
The decision is in keeping with a leaked draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito from last month showing that the majority of the justices supported overturning the ruling.
In its final opinion, the court ruled that Roe v. Wade and a subsequent decision on abortion Planned Parenthood v. Casey were “wrongly decided” and that the Constitution does not “confer a right to abortion.”
Now that Roe v. Wade is officially overturned, here are a few answers to frequently asked questions around how this monumental decision will impact abortion care and reproductive rights nationwide.
Is abortion care now completely illegal?
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade does not mean that abortions are outright outlawed in the country. Instead, the ruling gives the states all the authority in allowing how much access women have to abortion and what a legal abortion looks like. About half of the country has legislation in place to either ban abortions entirely or to severely limit the procedure, with “trigger laws” in 13 states set to ban the procedure either immediately, within 30 days, or upon certification.
What is a trigger law?
A “trigger law” refers to abortion bans passed by state legislatures that would become enforceable as soon as Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court. The 13 states that have so-called “trigger laws” are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Idaho, Arkansas, Utah, Wyoming, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Some of those trigger laws were passed by state governments over a decade ago, while others like in Oklahoma, Idaho and Texas were passed more recently.
There are also seven states with pre-Roe abortion bans that are not technically “trigger laws” but would go into effect with dissolution of Roe. However, the future enforcement of those laws remains unclear. Those states are Arizona, Alabama, Wisconsin, Michigan and West Virginia, Mississippi, and Oklahoma, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive health policy organization.
Where will abortion still be legal?
There are at least eight states where abortion care is offered protections under the law: Maine, New York, Illinois, Washington, California, Vermont, Colorado and New Mexico. All of those states offer legal abortions until fetal viability outside of the womb, which happens at around 24 to 26 weeks of pregnancy.
In total there are 16 states that have passed legislation that protects a person’s right to an abortion.
What does this mean for emergency contraception?
Birth control is still legal nationwide but there are some conservative lawmakers who have started targeting certain forms of it. Last year, Republicans in Missouri tried to block Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, which provides a number of reproductive health care needs including abortion care and birth control.
Lawmakers were specifically trying to target IUDs (copper IUDs can be used as emergency contraception) and the emergency contraceptive pill known as the morning after pill or Plan B.
Emergency contraception does not cause abortion. It is one of the safest and most effective ways to prevent unintended pregnancy after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure.
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