[ And that number is about to be even higher as states rush to
pass new bans and move restrictions out of legal limbo.]
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17 MILLION WOMEN HAVE LOST ABORTION ACCESS SINCE THE SUPREME COURT
OVERTURNED ROE  
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Alanna Vagianos
September 1, 2022
HuffPost
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_ And that number is about to be even higher as states rush to pass
new bans and move restrictions out of legal limbo. _

, ILLUSTRATION: JIANAN LIU/HUFFPOST

 

In the two months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, more
than a dozen states have banned or severely restricted access to
abortion ― leaving millions of people without critical health care.

Seventeen states have banned, severely restricted or stopped offering
access to abortion care since the court took away federal abortion
protections in June’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
decision.

That means that of the 75 million American women of reproductive age,
nearly 30 million have limited or no access to abortion, according to
the Guttmacher Institute [[link removed]], a
pro-abortion rights research organization. Around 17 million of those
women live in states where lawmakers have either completely banned
abortion care or providers have stopped offering it due to uncertainty
around abortion laws. These numbers only increase when including
transgender, nonbinary and genderqueer people who are able to get
pregnant.

“These bans mean that every one of these millions of people, should
they need an abortion, will have to overcome extreme logistical and
financial barriers to access care,” Elizabeth Nash, a principal
policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, said in a recent
statement. “Abortion is an essential component of reproductive
health care that was already difficult to achieve pre-Dobbs, but is
now even more challenging or outright impossible for many.”

Eleven states are currently enforcing near-total abortion bans:
Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Idaho, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas,
Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Missouri. Some of these
near-total bans were implemented through trigger laws, while others
went into effect through pre-Roe restrictions that immediately took
effect after the Dobbs decision came down in June.

All of the near-total bans have extremely limited exceptions. Some,
like Tennessee’s and South Dakota’s, have no exceptions for rape
or incest, and those that do require victims to report to law
enforcement before they can access abortion care. All of the abortion
bans have exceptions to save the life of a pregnant person, but many
of those exceptions, like those in Missouri and Texas, are
intentionally vague and create a powerful incentive for physicians not
to provide lifesaving care until the pregnant person is at death’s
door
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for fear of consequences like losing their license or facing lawsuits
and criminal penalties.

Other states are enforcing abortion restrictions in the wake of
Roe’s demise. These include Georgia and Ohio, which each have a
six-week ban; Florida, which has a 15-week ban; Utah, which has an
18-week ban; and North Carolina, which has a 20-week ban. And in
Wisconsin, physicians have stopped providing abortions because it’s
unclear if a pre-Roe abortion ban is in effect. Georgia is the only
state that has an exception for rape or incest, but requires victims
to report the assault to law enforcement before accessing an abortion.

[Shown in dark red, 11 states are currently enforcing near-total
abortion bans. Six other states have implemented other restrictions on
abortion since Roe fell, ranging from six-week bans (Georgia and
Ohio), to a 15-week ban (Florida), an 18-week ban (Utah) and a 20-week
ban (North Carolina).]

Shown in dark red, 11 states are currently enforcing near-total
abortion bans. Six other states have implemented other restrictions on
abortion since Roe fell, ranging from six-week bans (Georgia and
Ohio), to a 15-week ban (Florida), an 18-week ban (Utah) and a 20-week
ban (North Carolina).  GETTY IMAGES

Florida’s and North Carolina’s restrictions are less severe than
those in many other states, but they have broader implications for the
region. Florida and North Carolina both border states with near-total
bans, making them critical access points
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people who need to travel out of state for abortion care. Utah’s
18-week abortion restriction is limiting as well, but the state is
close to Colorado and New Mexico, where abortion is far more
accessible.

The fall of Roe has had far-reaching and devastating consequences. In
addition to those who have been forced to carry unwanted pregnancies
to term, many patients who have been able to receive care have had to
travel far distances and overcome obstacles like getting time off of
work and finding child care. Often, those barriers to care push people
further into their pregnancies, which can lead to an even more costly
medication or procedural abortion.

Some patients, like one woman in Texas
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medically necessary abortions until they are hours or even moments
from death. Others, like a 10-year-old girl from Ohio
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have been forced to travel out of state to receive abortion care after
becoming pregnant from rape or incest. In many cases, the physicians
who provided lifesaving care were attacked or threatened legally for
doing their jobs.

And across the country, surveillance of pregnant people has grown. In
Nebraska, for example, Facebook provided law enforcement with social
media messages
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a teenager and her mother after the two were accused of self-managing
an abortion for the teen.

The surveillance and fear of prosecution go way beyond just those with
the capacity for pregnancy.

Pharmacists across the country have been reticent to prescribe
medications that include or are similar to those used in medication
abortion. Heartburn medication was pulled
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some Texas pharmacies because of its makeup; some doctors
reportedly stopped
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methotrexate, a common medication for people with auto-immune diseases
like rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. Other patients have
been wrongly denied their birth control prescriptions or access to
emergency contraceptives like Plan B, which are still legal in every
state despite the overturn of Roe. Some women have reported
[[link removed]] pharmacists
refusing to fill prescriptions for certain forms of mifepristone (one
of the medications included in abortion pills) even though it was
prescribed prior to an IUD insertion.

“Two months after the Supreme Court eliminated the federal
constitutional right to abortion, nearly a third of this country is
without meaningful access to care,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president
and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a
statement.

“The people living in these states have fewer rights than those who
live where abortion remains legal,” she added. “They have been
robbed of their fundamental right to decide what is best for their own
bodies, lives, and futures. … There is no way to sugarcoat how dark
this time is, and the devastation that is unfolding.”

Abortion access still hangs in the balance in several other states,
with some poised to enact restrictions over the next month.

Trigger laws in North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming have been temporarily
blocked while litigation moves forward. A near-total abortion ban is
making its way through the West Virginia and South Carolina state
legislatures, while a near-total abortion ban in Indiana
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the first anti-choice legislation to pass since Roe’s demise —
will take effect on Sept. 15. And an anti-abortion measure in Arizona
is set to go into effect on Sept. 24, but the state attorney general
requested the courts consider an even stricter ban.

_Alanna Vagianos is a senior national reporter at HuffPost. She covers
gender and politics with a focus on gender-based violence and
reproductive justice_

 

* abortion restrictions
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* Roe v. Wade
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* state legislatures
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