After Roe?

WorldbyStorm

May 5

Here's a useful piece from Vox on where the legal right to abortion stands after Roe v Wade is done away with.

The precis?

First, nearly half the states in the country will almost immediately permit little to no access to abortion when the decision is finalized and announced. Second, more states could quickly follow, while states with existing bans could enact even more restrictive laws.

But the ramifications are huge:

Think of a state like Oklahoma, where, in a post-Roe world, abortions will only be legal if necessary to save a patient's life in a "medical emergency." Prosecutors could target physicians and force them to provide evidence that a particular abortion was truly necessary to save their patient's life.

Meanwhile, the mere threat of such prosecutions could lead to unnecessary deaths, as doctors may be unwilling to perform a medically necessary abortion and risk felony charges.

And:

One factor that could mitigate the impact of state-level abortion bans is that more than half of abortions in the United States are medication abortions — in which the patient takes pills to induce a miscarriage rather than undergoing a surgery. States commonly ban a wide range of drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, but that's hardly prevented people who want to obtain these drugs from doing so. It's unlikely that state governments will be any more effective at eliminating access to mifepristone, a common abortion drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

It's also not clear whether the Supreme Court will allow states to ban federally approved drugs, although the current Court's hostility to abortion rights suggests that they might permit states to do so in the future.

And as the piece notes, it doesn't end there. This becomes a battleground in each individual state - presumably with states shifting back and forth from pro-choice to anti-abortion as campaigns wax and wane. And yet the simple fact that a good majority of US citizens support provision of abortion should count for something - shouldn't it?

Comment