Well, there’s certainly no forgetting what happened during the summer of 2022. But since the overturning of Roe v. Wade – somehow already more than two years in the rearview mirror – much remains unclear about the current and future state of reproductive rights for millions of American women across the country. With less than a month to go until the 2024 presidential election, abortion is poised to remain at the center of the nation’s political discourse. If you’re like us, you’ve been trying to stay as informed as possible on all the nuanced details of the subject, but quite frankly, it’s a fragmented mess. Today’s issue is here to help.

Can I ask you a personal question?

Quick SCOTUS recap, please

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court reached its decision in the case of Roe v. Wade. Roe was a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, a Texas woman who wished to obtain an abortion but was unable to under laws allowing them only when necessary to save the mother’s life; Wade was a district attorney. McCorvey was represented by lawyers Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, who argued that the “Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment — which says that no state shall ‘deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law’ — implies a right to privacy” and that right to privacy protected abortion as a fundamental right. Seven of nine Supreme Court justices agreed, stipulating that states could only place restrictions on abortions that occurred after the fetus reaches viability, generally considered to be around six months of pregnancy.

For nearly 50 years, American women were guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the latter of which was the sole abortion provider in Mississippi and sought to contest the state’s “Gestational Age Act”, prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. With a five-justice majority, Justice Samuel Alito argued that the right to privacy is not specifically guaranteed anywhere in the Constitution, and thus that the right to an abortion was not constitutionally protected, overturning the ruling of Roe v. Wade. Dissenting opinion stated that “young women today will come of age with fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers…from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A state can force her to bring a pregnancy to term even at the steepest personal and familial costs." From that point forward, women’s right to an abortion has rested in the hands of the states.

Why does it matter if it's “in the hands of the states”?

In short, it matters because women across the country now face an increasingly complex, opaque, and confusing system governing their reproductive health. With the fall of Roe, states are now free to legislate and thus ban abortion within their borders however they see fit. And many have done exactly that. Fourteen states (e.g. Texas) have total abortion bans. Numerous others have restrictions ranging from exceptionally stringent (e.g. Florida’s 6-week ban) to limited and unstable (e.g. Utah’s 18-week ban and pending trigger ban). Since 2023, more than five thousand abortion-related legislative actions have been introduced. But even before that, some states had long been preparing for the fall of Roe. Trigger bans, which were passed since Roe was decided but before it was overturned, were designed to automatically take effect in the event that abortion was no longer constitutionally protected. Thirteen states had such laws in place in the summer of 2022.

While all states enforcing abortion bans provide exceptions for the life of the mother, all but 6 for the health of the mother, all but 10 for rape or incest, and all but 13 for fatal fetal anomalies, the language surrounding such exceptions can be vague, subjective, or difficult to interpret. As a result, doctors fear facing felony charges of their own if their actions are deemed noncompliant with the terminology used in their state’s laws, and mothers in need of life-saving abortions may have to wait until their health has dramatically deteriorated before they’re given treatment.

What else should I know about abortion access?

In addition to total bans, trigger bans, and pre-viability bans, many states have also put measures in place to make abortions considerably more challenging to obtain, such as those requiring multiple in-person visits to clinicians prior to an abortion, up to 72-hour waiting periods between such visits, and medically unnecessary ultrasounds. We can’t help but wonder (rhetorically)...would a man’s ability to come to his own informed decision regarding his body, health, economic stability, and future goals ever be so undermined?

Putting aside the offensiveness of such policies for a moment, their detrimental effect on geographical and thus financial access also can’t be overstated. Even in 2017, before the overturning of Roe, a study by the University of California San Francisco found that there were 27 “abortion deserts” across the US, or “cities with populations of over 100,000 where people must travel more than 100 miles to reach a clinic. This means people who need abortions may have to consider transportation, child care, time off work, and sometimes the money to stay overnight in a hotel when they seek out care.” Within just 100 days of the fall of Roe, one report showed that 66 of 79 total clinics across 15 different states were forced to stop offering abortions. Entire swaths of the Midwest and the Southeast have effectively become abortion deserts.

What do I need to know for the 2024 ballot?

If the most important thing you can do regarding abortion is to stay informed of the laws in your own state, the second most important thing you can do is to know what’s on your state’s ballot regarding abortion in the quickly approaching 2024 election, just weeks away now. As of today, eleven states will have abortion-related state constitutional amendment measures on their ballots in November: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota. As with the bans themselves, the nature of these measures vary wildly. In Missouri and South Dakota, for example, where abortions are currently under a total ban, voters will have the opportunity to protect access to the procedure up to a certain point in the mother’s pregnancy. Other states, such as New York, where abortion access is guaranteed until fetal viability, will present measures seeking to limit the potential for future legislative restrictions.

Finally, the presidential candidates. Kamala Harris has made protecting abortion rights a defining issue of her campaign. She has vowed to veto a national abortion ban, should one ever arise, has worked to prevent restrictions on access to abortion medication, and has sought to support women who travel across state lines to obtain an abortion. (She spoke with Alex Cooper about the issue in a recent episode of Call Her Daddy.) Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been far less clear or consistent in his stance on abortion. He has praised the overturning of Roe, which was facilitated by multiple Supreme Court justices he appointed, claiming that the control should rest in the hands of the states to determine the abortion rights of their citizens. However, he has not supported a national abortion ban and has been mildly critical of total or extremely limiting bans, yet has also been known to refer to himself as the “most pro-life president” in the past.

One last note…

As today’s issue of NTP just scratches the surface of abortion access throughout today’s United States, the complexity surrounding the topic is not only overwhelming, but it’s also continuously evolving. Interactive maps like this or this can help you get all the information available regarding the legal status of abortion in your (or any) state across the country. As we’ve said many times before, knowledge is power. Especially as it relates to one of the most fundamental aspects of our health as women. Abortion access has been critical in the lives of those very close to us, and we’d venture to say the same is probably true for you, too. Even as times may be scary or uncertain for our reproductive health, they’re never too scary or uncertain to continue supporting each other and standing up for our rights. <3

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💖 S & J