On both sides of America’s abortion debate, activists are convinced that Roe v. Wade — the 1973 Supreme Court ruling establishing a nationwide right to abortion — is imperiled as never before.
Yet no matter how the current conservative-dominated court handles pending high-profile abortion cases — perhaps weakening Roe, perhaps gutting it completely — there will be no monolithic, nationwide change. Fractious state-by-state battles over abortion access will continue.
Roe’s demise would likely prompt at least 20 Republican-governed states to impose sweeping bans; perhaps 15 Democratic-governed states would reaffirm support for abortion access.
More complicated would be politically divided states where fights over abortion laws could be ferocious — and likely become a volatile issue in the 2022 elections.
“Many of these states are one election away from a vastly different political landscape when it comes to abortion,” said Jessica Arons, a reproductive rights lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.
Those states include Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which now have Democratic governors and Republican-controlled legislatures. GOP gubernatorial victories next year could position those states to join others in imposing bans if Roe were nullified.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Activists demonstrate on the plaza of the Supreme Court in Washington on the first day of the court's new term on Oct. 4, 2021.
The net effect on abortion prevalence is difficult to predict, given that many people in states with bans would persist in seeking to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Some could face drives of hundreds of miles to reach the nearest clinic; others might obtain abortion pills by mail to end a pregnancy on their own.
Among the briefs filed with the Supreme Court as it considers a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks is one reflecting input from 154 economists and researchers. If abortions became illegal in 23 states, they calculate, the number of abortions at clinics nationwide would fall by about 14%, or about 120,000, in the following year.
Abortion rights activists predict women of color, rural residents, low-income women, and LGBTQ people would be disproportionately affected.
Under this scenario, the economists say, bans would affect 26 million women of child-rearing age, and the average distance to the nearest abortion clinic would increase from 35 miles to 279 miles.
Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, says a gutting of Roe would galvanize some Democratic-governed states and abortion-rights groups to accelerate programs assisting people to cross state lines for abortions.
“But things will get complicated and difficult very quickly,” she said. “You’re disrupting the entire abortion care network across the country, and people will be seeking abortion in locations which may not have enough capacity for people in their state already.”
AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell
A 33-year-old mother of three from central Texas is escorted down the hall by clinic administrator Kathaleen Pittman prior to getting an abortion Oct. 9, 2021, at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, La. The woman was one of more than a dozen patients who arrived at the abortion clinic, mostly from Texas, where the nation's most restrictive abortion law remains in effect.
A possible preview is unfolding at Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Fairview Heights, Illinois, just outside St. Louis. It opened in 2019 as an abortion option for people from Missouri and other nearby Republican-governed states. It’s seeing an increase in patients from farther away as a tough ban in Texas creates appointment backlogs throughout the south-central U.S.
Dr. Colleen McNicholas, Planned Parenthood’s chief medical officer for reproductive health services in the St. Louis region, said the clinic is bracing for a possible influx of an additional 14,000 women per year seeking abortion services if post-Roe bans proliferate.
“We’re absolutely thinking about what operational changes we would need — staying open seven days a week, operating two shifts each day – to absorb that many patients,” she said.
Already, patients are “super frustrated” by drives of up to nine hours from home, she said.
Michael New, an abortion opponent who teaches social research at The Catholic University of America, said possible increases of out-of-state abortions and “mail-order abortions” would be among several challenges facing the anti-abortion movement even as its dream of Roe’s demise came true.
AP Photo/Brandon Wade
Anti-abortion demonstrators pray and protest outside of a Whole Women's Health of North Texas on Oct. 1, 2021, in McKinney, Texas.
Another potential challenge: Some Democratic-leaning prosecutors might refuse to enforce bans.
Michigan, for example, has a 90-year-old ban on the books. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, says she wouldn’t enforce it if it became law; a local prosecutor, Democrat Eli Savit in Washtenaw County, tweeted, “We will never, ever prosecute any person for exercising reproductive freedom.”
While there’s a consensus that Roe is more vulnerable than ever, there’s no certainty about how the Supreme Court might proceed. Clues will surface on Dec. 1, when justices hear arguments in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
In that case, Mississippi is asking the court to overrule Roe and a follow-up 1992 decision that prevents states from banning abortion before viability, the point around 24 weeks of pregnancy when a fetus can survive outside the womb.
If the court simply upholds Mississippi’s ban, other Republican-governed states would likely enact similar measures. The Guttmacher Institute says between 6.3% and 7.4% of U.S. abortions, or 54,000 to 63,000 annually, are obtained at or after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
However, activists on opposing sides believe the high court — either in the Mississippi case or a subsequent one — is poised to go further, nullifying Roe so states would be free to impose sweeping bans.
“For nearly 50 years, states have been prevented from passing abortion laws that reflect the values of people who live there,” said Mallory Quigley of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group. “Dobbs is the best opportunity since 1973 to correct that.”
Wisconsin could become one of the most contested battlegrounds, since it still has in its statutes an 1849 law criminalizing abortion. But even if the law took effect, it might not be enforced if next year’s election leaves Democrats serving as governor, attorney general and as district attorneys in Milwaukee and Madison, which are home to abortion clinics.
The 2022 elections are likely to energize activists in each camp, says Julaine Appling, an abortion opponent who leads the Wisconsin Family Council.
“The smart candidates running on either side will say it makes a huge difference who is governor and who is attorney general,” she said. “Wisconsin is very purple — and we’ve got a real fight on our hands on this issue.”
Arons, the ACLU lawyer, says anti-abortion activists are deluding themselves if they think post-Roe bans can enable them to live in abortion-free states.
“People who want to end their pregnancies will find a way to do so, whether it’s legal or not,” she said. “The need will always be there.”
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AP file
WASHINGTON (AP) — Abortion already is dominating the Supreme Court’s new term, months before the justices will decide whether to reverse decisions reaching back nearly 50 years. Not only is there Mississippi's call to overrule Roe v. Wade, but the court also soon will be asked again to weigh in on the Texas law banning abortion at roughly six weeks.
The justices won't be writing on a blank slate as they consider the future of abortion rights in the U.S. They have had a lot to say about abortion over the years — in opinions, votes, Senate confirmation testimony and elsewhere. Just one, Clarence Thomas, has openly called for overruling Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two cases that established and reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion. Here is a sampling of their comments:
AP file
WASHINGTON (AP) — Abortion already is dominating the Supreme Court’s new term, months before the justices will decide whether to reverse decisions reaching back nearly 50 years. Not only is there Mississippi's call to overrule Roe v. Wade, but the court also soon will be asked again to weigh in on the Texas law banning abortion at roughly six weeks.
The justices won't be writing on a blank slate as they consider the future of abortion rights in the U.S. They have had a lot to say about abortion over the years — in opinions, votes, Senate confirmation testimony and elsewhere. Just one, Clarence Thomas, has openly called for overruling Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two cases that established and reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion. Here is a sampling of their comments:
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Chief Justice John Roberts voted to uphold restrictions in two major abortion cases, in the majority in 2007 to uphold a ban on a method of abortion opponents call "partial-birth abortion" and in dissent in 2016 when the court struck down Texas restrictions on abortion clinics in a case called Whole Woman's Health. But when a virtually identical law from Louisiana came before the court in 2020, Roberts voted against it and wrote the opinion controlling the outcome of the case and striking down the Louisiana law. The chief justice said he continues to believe that the 2016 case "was wrongly decided" but that the question was "whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case."
Roberts' views on when to break with court precedent could determine how far he is willing to go in the Mississippi case. At his 2005 confirmation hearing, he said overturning precedent "is a jolt to the legal system," which depends in part on stability and evenhandedness. Thinking that an earlier case was wrongly decided is not enough, he said. Overturning a case requires looking "at these other factors, like settled expectations, like the legitimacy of the Court, like whether a particular precedent is workable or not, whether a precedent has been eroded by subsequent developments," Roberts said then.
In the same hearing, Roberts was asked to explain his presence on a legal brief filed by the George H.W. Bush administration that said Roe's conclusion that there is a right to abortion has "no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.'' Roberts responded that the brief reflected the administration's views.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Chief Justice John Roberts voted to uphold restrictions in two major abortion cases, in the majority in 2007 to uphold a ban on a method of abortion opponents call "partial-birth abortion" and in dissent in 2016 when the court struck down Texas restrictions on abortion clinics in a case called Whole Woman's Health. But when a virtually identical law from Louisiana came before the court in 2020, Roberts voted against it and wrote the opinion controlling the outcome of the case and striking down the Louisiana law. The chief justice said he continues to believe that the 2016 case "was wrongly decided" but that the question was "whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case."
Roberts' views on when to break with court precedent could determine how far he is willing to go in the Mississippi case. At his 2005 confirmation hearing, he said overturning precedent "is a jolt to the legal system," which depends in part on stability and evenhandedness. Thinking that an earlier case was wrongly decided is not enough, he said. Overturning a case requires looking "at these other factors, like settled expectations, like the legitimacy of the Court, like whether a particular precedent is workable or not, whether a precedent has been eroded by subsequent developments," Roberts said then.
In the same hearing, Roberts was asked to explain his presence on a legal brief filed by the George H.W. Bush administration that said Roe's conclusion that there is a right to abortion has "no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.'' Roberts responded that the brief reflected the administration's views.
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas voted to overturn Roe in 1992, in his first term on the court, when he was a dissenter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He has repeatedly called for Roe and Casey to be overturned since.
In 2000, he wrote in dissent when the court struck down Nebraska's ban on "partial-birth abortion." Recounting the court's decision in Roe, he wrote, "In 1973, this Court struck down an Act of the Texas Legislature that had been in effect since 1857, thereby rendering unconstitutional abortion statutes in dozens of States. As some of my colleagues on the Court, past and present, ably demonstrated, that decision was grievously wrong. Abortion is a unique act, in which a woman's exercise of control over her own body ends, depending on one's view, human life or potential human life. Nothing in our Federal Constitution deprives the people of this country of the right to determine whether the consequences of abortion to the fetus and to society outweigh the burden of an unwanted pregnancy on the mother. Although a State may permit abortion, nothing in the Constitution dictates that a State must do so."
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas voted to overturn Roe in 1992, in his first term on the court, when he was a dissenter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He has repeatedly called for Roe and Casey to be overturned since.
In 2000, he wrote in dissent when the court struck down Nebraska's ban on "partial-birth abortion." Recounting the court's decision in Roe, he wrote, "In 1973, this Court struck down an Act of the Texas Legislature that had been in effect since 1857, thereby rendering unconstitutional abortion statutes in dozens of States. As some of my colleagues on the Court, past and present, ably demonstrated, that decision was grievously wrong. Abortion is a unique act, in which a woman's exercise of control over her own body ends, depending on one's view, human life or potential human life. Nothing in our Federal Constitution deprives the people of this country of the right to determine whether the consequences of abortion to the fetus and to society outweigh the burden of an unwanted pregnancy on the mother. Although a State may permit abortion, nothing in the Constitution dictates that a State must do so."
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File
Associate Justice Stephen Breyer has been the lead author of two court majorities in defense of abortion rights, in 2000 and 2016. He has never voted to sustain an abortion restriction, but he has acknowledged the controversy over abortion.
Millions of Americans believe "that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child," while millions of others "fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity," he wrote in the Nebraska case 21 years ago, calling those views "virtually irreconcilable." Still, Breyer wrote, because the Constitution guarantees "fundamental individual liberty" and has to govern even when there are strong divisions in the country, "this Court, in the course of a generation, has determined and then redetermined that the Constitution offers basic protection to the woman's right to choose."
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File
Associate Justice Stephen Breyer has been the lead author of two court majorities in defense of abortion rights, in 2000 and 2016. He has never voted to sustain an abortion restriction, but he has acknowledged the controversy over abortion.
Millions of Americans believe "that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child," while millions of others "fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity," he wrote in the Nebraska case 21 years ago, calling those views "virtually irreconcilable." Still, Breyer wrote, because the Constitution guarantees "fundamental individual liberty" and has to govern even when there are strong divisions in the country, "this Court, in the course of a generation, has determined and then redetermined that the Constitution offers basic protection to the woman's right to choose."
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Samuel Alito has a long track record of votes and writings opposing abortion rights, as a jurist and, earlier, a government lawyer.
Alito has voted to uphold every abortion law the court has considered since his 2006 confirmation, joining a majority to uphold the federal "partial-birth" abortion law and dissenting in the 2016 and 2020 cases.
As a federal appeals court judge, he voted to uphold a series of Pennsylvania abortion restrictions, including requiring a woman to notify her spouse before obtaining an abortion. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the notification rule in Casey and reaffirmed the abortion right in 1992 by a 5-4 vote.
Working for the Reagan administration in 1985, Alito wrote in a memo that the government should say publicly in a pending abortion case "that we disagree with Roe v. Wade." Around the same time, applying for a promotion, Alito noted he was "particularly proud" of his work arguing "that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Samuel Alito has a long track record of votes and writings opposing abortion rights, as a jurist and, earlier, a government lawyer.
Alito has voted to uphold every abortion law the court has considered since his 2006 confirmation, joining a majority to uphold the federal "partial-birth" abortion law and dissenting in the 2016 and 2020 cases.
As a federal appeals court judge, he voted to uphold a series of Pennsylvania abortion restrictions, including requiring a woman to notify her spouse before obtaining an abortion. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the notification rule in Casey and reaffirmed the abortion right in 1992 by a 5-4 vote.
Working for the Reagan administration in 1985, Alito wrote in a memo that the government should say publicly in a pending abortion case "that we disagree with Roe v. Wade." Around the same time, applying for a promotion, Alito noted he was "particularly proud" of his work arguing "that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the court in 2009 with virtually no record on abortion issues, but has voted repeatedly in favor of abortion rights since then. Recently, when the court allowed Texas' restrictive abortion law to take effect, Sotomayor accused her colleagues of burying "their heads in the sand." She was in the majority in the Texas and Louisiana abortion clinic cases.
Sotomayor's displeasure with the court's recent Texas ruling was evident at a recent virtual appearance she made. "I can't change Texas' law, but you can," she said.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the court in 2009 with virtually no record on abortion issues, but has voted repeatedly in favor of abortion rights since then. Recently, when the court allowed Texas' restrictive abortion law to take effect, Sotomayor accused her colleagues of burying "their heads in the sand." She was in the majority in the Texas and Louisiana abortion clinic cases.
Sotomayor's displeasure with the court's recent Texas ruling was evident at a recent virtual appearance she made. "I can't change Texas' law, but you can," she said.
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Elena Kagan also has repeatedly voted in favor of abortion rights in more than 11 years as a justice. She is also arguably the most consistent voice on the court arguing for the importance of adhering to precedents and can be expected to try to persuade her colleagues not to jettison constitutional protections for abortion.
Kagan was in the majority when the court struck down the Texas and Louisiana restrictions on abortion clinics. More recently, Kagan called Texas' new abortion law "patently unconstitutional" and a "clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey."
Kagan had already grappled with the issue of abortion before becoming a justice. While working in the Clinton White House she was the co-author of a memo that urged the president for political reasons to support a late-term abortion ban proposed by Republicans in Congress, so long as it contained an exception for the health of the woman. Ultimately, President George W. Bush signed a similar late-term abortion ban without a health exception. The Supreme Court upheld it.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Elena Kagan also has repeatedly voted in favor of abortion rights in more than 11 years as a justice. She is also arguably the most consistent voice on the court arguing for the importance of adhering to precedents and can be expected to try to persuade her colleagues not to jettison constitutional protections for abortion.
Kagan was in the majority when the court struck down the Texas and Louisiana restrictions on abortion clinics. More recently, Kagan called Texas' new abortion law "patently unconstitutional" and a "clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey."
Kagan had already grappled with the issue of abortion before becoming a justice. While working in the Clinton White House she was the co-author of a memo that urged the president for political reasons to support a late-term abortion ban proposed by Republicans in Congress, so long as it contained an exception for the health of the woman. Ultimately, President George W. Bush signed a similar late-term abortion ban without a health exception. The Supreme Court upheld it.
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has perhaps the shortest record on abortion among the nine justices. He was in the majority allowing Texas' restrictive abortion law to take effect. In dissent in 2020, he would have upheld Louisiana's abortion clinic restrictions. As an appeals court judge before joining the Supreme Court in 2017, Gorsuch dissented when his colleagues declined to reconsider a ruling that blocked then-Utah Gov. Gary Herbert from cutting off funding for the state branch of Planned Parenthood. But Gorsuch insisted at his Senate confirmation hearing that he was concerned about procedural issues, not the subject matter. "I do not care if the case is about abortion or widgets or anything else," he said.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has perhaps the shortest record on abortion among the nine justices. He was in the majority allowing Texas' restrictive abortion law to take effect. In dissent in 2020, he would have upheld Louisiana's abortion clinic restrictions. As an appeals court judge before joining the Supreme Court in 2017, Gorsuch dissented when his colleagues declined to reconsider a ruling that blocked then-Utah Gov. Gary Herbert from cutting off funding for the state branch of Planned Parenthood. But Gorsuch insisted at his Senate confirmation hearing that he was concerned about procedural issues, not the subject matter. "I do not care if the case is about abortion or widgets or anything else," he said.
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AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's name was added to former President Donald Trump's shortlist of Supreme Court candidates shortly after he sided with the administration in a 2017 case involving abortion. Trump chose him for the court the following year. As a justice, Kavanaugh dissented from the Louisiana decision and voted to allow the new Texas law to take effect, though he has taken a less absolutist stance than some of his conservative colleagues. In the Louisiana case, for example, Kavanaugh wrote that more information was needed about how the state's restrictions on clinics would affect doctors who provide abortions and seemed to suggest his vote could change knowing that information.
Kavanaugh's most extensive writing on abortion came while he was a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington. The Trump administration had appealed a lower court ruling ordering it to allow a pregnant 17-year-old immigrant in its custody to get an abortion. The administration's policy was to decline to help those minors get abortions while in custody.
Kavanaugh was on a three-judge panel that postponed the abortion, arguing that officials should be given a limited window to transfer the minor out of government custody to the care of a sponsor. She could then obtain an abortion without the government's assistance. The full appeals court later reversed the decision and the teenager obtained an abortion. Kavanaugh called that decision out-of-step with the "many majority opinions of the Supreme Court that have repeatedly upheld reasonable regulations that do not impose an undue burden on the abortion right recognized by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade."
Kavanaugh was criticized by some conservatives for not going as far as a colleague, Judge Karen Henderson, who stated unambiguously that an immigrant in the U.S. illegally has no right to an abortion. At his appeals court confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh dodged questions on his own personal beliefs on Roe v. Wade.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's name was added to former President Donald Trump's shortlist of Supreme Court candidates shortly after he sided with the administration in a 2017 case involving abortion. Trump chose him for the court the following year. As a justice, Kavanaugh dissented from the Louisiana decision and voted to allow the new Texas law to take effect, though he has taken a less absolutist stance than some of his conservative colleagues. In the Louisiana case, for example, Kavanaugh wrote that more information was needed about how the state's restrictions on clinics would affect doctors who provide abortions and seemed to suggest his vote could change knowing that information.
Kavanaugh's most extensive writing on abortion came while he was a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington. The Trump administration had appealed a lower court ruling ordering it to allow a pregnant 17-year-old immigrant in its custody to get an abortion. The administration's policy was to decline to help those minors get abortions while in custody.
Kavanaugh was on a three-judge panel that postponed the abortion, arguing that officials should be given a limited window to transfer the minor out of government custody to the care of a sponsor. She could then obtain an abortion without the government's assistance. The full appeals court later reversed the decision and the teenager obtained an abortion. Kavanaugh called that decision out-of-step with the "many majority opinions of the Supreme Court that have repeatedly upheld reasonable regulations that do not impose an undue burden on the abortion right recognized by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade."
Kavanaugh was criticized by some conservatives for not going as far as a colleague, Judge Karen Henderson, who stated unambiguously that an immigrant in the U.S. illegally has no right to an abortion. At his appeals court confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh dodged questions on his own personal beliefs on Roe v. Wade.
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett's one public vote on the Supreme Court concerning abortion was to allow the Texas "fetal heartbeat" law to take effect. She also cast two votes as an appeals court judge to reconsider rulings that blocked Indiana abortion restrictions.
In 2016, shortly before the election that would put Trump in office, she commented about how she thought abortion law might change if Trump had the chance to appoint justices. "I ... don't think the core case — Roe's core holding that, you know, women have a right to an abortion — I don't think that would change," said Barrett, then a Notre Dame law professor. She said limits on what she called "very late-term abortions" and restrictions on abortion clinics would be more likely to be upheld.
Barrett also has a long record of personal opposition to abortion rights, co-authoring a 1998 law review article that said abortion is "always immoral." At her 2017 hearing to be an appeals court judge, Barrett said in written testimony, "If I am confirmed, my views on this or any other question will have no bearing on the discharge of my duties as a judge."
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett's one public vote on the Supreme Court concerning abortion was to allow the Texas "fetal heartbeat" law to take effect. She also cast two votes as an appeals court judge to reconsider rulings that blocked Indiana abortion restrictions.
In 2016, shortly before the election that would put Trump in office, she commented about how she thought abortion law might change if Trump had the chance to appoint justices. "I ... don't think the core case — Roe's core holding that, you know, women have a right to an abortion — I don't think that would change," said Barrett, then a Notre Dame law professor. She said limits on what she called "very late-term abortions" and restrictions on abortion clinics would be more likely to be upheld.
Barrett also has a long record of personal opposition to abortion rights, co-authoring a 1998 law review article that said abortion is "always immoral." At her 2017 hearing to be an appeals court judge, Barrett said in written testimony, "If I am confirmed, my views on this or any other question will have no bearing on the discharge of my duties as a judge."
