The US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion two years ago this Monday. In that time, access to the process across the country has changed dramatically: many parts of the country have effectively banned the procedure, while others have passed laws to safeguard it.
In all this time, dozens of abortion clinics in several states have closed. And with increasingly restrictive laws still in place, that number may still increase.
Fourteen states have issued bans so broad that it is virtually impossible to receive legal abortion services within their borders. Some, like Texas, have laws that impose potentially severe penalties on people who help a woman travel out of state for the purpose of having an abortion.
Widespread impact
According to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that studies sexual and reproductive health issues, the impact of legal changes has been broad and varied. For example, women who do not have easy access to a reproductive health center must rely on telemedicine appointments to receive diagnoses and are often required to terminate their pregnancies at home by taking mailed medications.
According to Guttmacher’s research, the bans have led to a decline in the quality of health care women receive.
In some states with very restrictive laws, women with life-threatening pregnancy complications must wait until they are at imminent risk of harm before doctors are allowed to perform abortions. In other cases, the closure of local reproductive health centers has left pregnant women without access to quality prenatal care and other women without access to contraceptive care.
Abortion bans have even prevented new doctors at medical schools in states with the strictest laws from receiving instruction in how to perform abortions.
Expensive travel requirements
Many women who leave their home state to have an abortion must travel hundreds of miles, sometimes with serious medical problems, to access care.
“Since the Dobbs decision and the ripple effect of state abortion bans that followed, travel times to access abortion care have increased 300% nationally,” said Sara Estep, associate director of the Women’s Initiative of the Center for American Progress, in an email to the VOA.
“The obvious increase in driving time really understates the impact this has on women in some of these states and congressional districts,” she added.
In Florida, for example, “driving times increased nearly 2,400 percent, and in South Texas, women have to drive more than 11 hours each way,” Estep said. “These abortion bans force women to take time off work, seek child care, pay for gas and many other travel-related costs that are often unsustainable for low-income, young, black or Hispanic women, and that’s before you even consider the cost of the procedure itself,” he said.
Unclear future
“While it will take some time for researchers and policymakers to fully understand the impact of Dobbs, some of the harm is already clear from the confusion and chaos now engulfing providers, clinics, and patients,” Candace Gibson, state policy director for the Guttmacher Institute, said in an email to the VOA.
The abortion issue is already playing a major role in November’s presidential election, as former President Donald Trump attempts to win the White House from President Joe Biden.
Democrats point out that the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the federal right to abortion, would not have been possible without Trump’s decision to nominate three justices known to be hostile to the procedure to the court.
In remarks prepared for an appearance Monday in Maryland, Vice President Kamala Harris accused the former president of “stealing the reproductive freedom of American women.”
“Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions,” Harris said. “Instead, he proudly takes credit for overturning Roe. In a court of law, that would be called an admission. Some would say a confession.”
Conservative positions
Since the Dobbs decision, American conservatives have suffered several electoral setbacks due, at least in part, to the widespread unpopularity of the new abortion restrictions being implemented.
Trump, on multiple occasions, has touted his role in forming the conservative majority on the Supreme Court that produced the Dobbs ruling. However, he typically frames the decision not as restricting abortion, but as sending the issue back to the states.
“The people will decide, and that’s how it should be,” he said during an appearance before a conservative Christian organization over the weekend. “People are now deciding.”
Trump has been careful not to endorse calls from several anti-abortion organizations to implement restrictions on the procedure nationwide.
Some conservative organizations, however, have called for stricter federal restrictions on abortion.
For example, Project 2025, a plan for an overhaul of the federal government under Trump drawn up by a coalition of conservative organizations, has called for renewed enforcement of a largely forgotten federal law, the Comstock Act, which bans the use of the Postal Service. to send drugs that cause abortions.
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