The retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy gives Donald Trump the ability to stack the court with conservatives poised to strike down Roe v. Wade. This fact alone should inspire great fear in those of us with uteruses (and those who care about us). But there’s something far scarier at stake here, and it’s rooted at the state level: Because of existing laws across the country, the fall of Roe will pretty much lead to instant abortion bans in as many as 17 states.
Even though Roe effectively removed states’ ability to ban abortions in 1973, a number of states let their statutes forbidding the procedure remain on their books. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 10 states still have (currently unenforceable) abortion bans codified in state law:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- New Mexico
- Oklahoma
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
Three additional states have laws on the books that will automatically go into effect and ban abortion if Roe gets overturned:
- Louisiana
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
Four more states have laws that “express their intent to restrict the right to legal abortion to the maximum extent permitted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the absence of Roe.”
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Missouri
- Ohio
So that’s 17 states—covering 79.7 million people, or almost 25 percent of the country’s population—where Roe gets overturned and SNAP! A woman’s legal right to obtain an abortion immediately disappears.
It’s like Trump just got the last Infinity Stone in the Abortion Rights Elimination Gauntlet.
Some of these bans include exceptions to protect the life or health of the mother or for rape or incest. Some do not. New Mexico’s pre-Roe ban has a slew of exceptions, including protecting the life, physical health, or mental health of the woman; when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest; or when the fetus may be born with defects.
And some of these states have Democratic legislatures and may move to protect women’s reproductive healthcare rights before a case with the potential to overturn Roe is decided by newly super-conservative Supreme Court. But Massachusetts and New Mexico currently have Republican governors; replacing them with Democrats before their next legislative sessions begin will be key to ensuring these laws are repealed.
But that’s no help to the millions of other women in other states who may find themselves abruptly stripped of the right to make their own healthcare decisions if Trump and Senate Republicans get their way and appoint another anti-Roe justice to the Supreme Court.
The only way to stop Trump is to take back the Senate. Please give $3 to make that happen today.
This post has been updated to remove Illinois from the list of states that would automatically ban abortion if Roe v. Wade were overturned.