A closer look at the states that restricted the procedure.
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court made a highly controversial decision: to end decades of precedent that protected abortion as a right throughout the United States. One year later, the country looks decidedly different in terms of reproductive rights.
After the justices decided in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the Constitution does not include a guaranteed right to abortion, the country was left without federal guidelines about the procedure that had been protected by Roe v. Wade for almost five decades. In the year since, Congress has made no progress on adding abortion protections to the Constitution (despite the requests of President Biden), which means it’s up to each individual state to legislate its own rules.
Both sides of the aisle have found success along the way. On the right, many conservative states immediately banned abortion using “trigger laws” — pieces of legislation that were passed before they could legally go into effect. These measures were created under the assumption that Roe would eventually fall, and when it did, the laws became instantly official. The rules in these states have varying degrees of restrictiveness, but lawmakers have touted them as victories in their mission to protect life.
On the left, states such as New York and California have laws specifically protecting the right to abortion, and some have become “abortion sanctuaries” that offer services to people from states where they’re banned.
There have been dramatic surprises, too: one of the most high-profile was in Kansas, a state that hasn’t gone blue in any presidential election since 1964. In the 2022 midterms, voters there weighed in on a ballot measure that would have amended the state’s constitution to say it contains no right to abortion. After a tense campaign, 59 percent of voters rejected that amendment, and abortion before 22 weeks of pregnancy remains legal there.
That result in Kansas is emblematic of how SCOTUS’s choice to strike down Roe has motivated voter behavior. According to statistics from the public opinion research firm PerryUndem, 64 percent of the first-time voters they surveyed said Dobbs is exactly what motivated them to turn out for the midterms in 2022. And in a post-midterm survey, 59 percent of registered voters said Dobbs will influence their election behavior for the long term. All in all, the seismic effects of this cultural shift will continue to be felt for years.
With a full year without Roe v. Wade now behind us, we took a closer look at what’s happened in the states that have restricted the right to abortion — and the political machinations that led to those decisions.
States where abortion is illegal
Alabama
Abortion is completely banned in Alabama, and has been since the day Roe v. Wade was struck down. The state’s regulations come from the Human Life Protection Act, originally passed in 2019. At the time, a federal judge prevented the legislation from taking effect, ruling that it was in opposition to Supreme Court precedent that held abortion was a legal right nationwide. When Roe collapsed, however, the law went into effect immediately.
The only exceptions to Alabama’s abortion ban are for cases in which the procedure would save a pregnant person’s life, or the pregnancy presents a serious risk to the mother’s health. The law doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest, and that’s not expected to change, according to Eric Johnston, the attorney who wrote the law.
“The simple answer is that the unborn child, whether conceived by rape or incest, artificial insemination, naturally, by married people or unmarried people — in every situation it’s always a child,” he said. “In the end, the bill passed overwhelmingly in the House and in the Senate without those exceptions, and there’s no reason now to go back and put them in. We didn’t want them then, and we don’t want them now.”
Arkansas
Immediately following the fall of Roe v. Wade, abortion became completely illegal in Arkansas. The only allowable exception comes in cases in which the procedure would save the life of the mother.
In March 2023, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a new law that would allow the construction of a “monument to the unborn” near the state capitol, which would memorialize the abortions that had taken place in the state before the ban took effect.
But during the same legislative session, two other bills notably failed to pass: One would’ve added an exception to the ban in the case of incest, and another would have broadened the law’s definition of what constitutes a “medical emergency” that necessitates a legal abortion. The legislators who opposed those proposals argued that approving them would open the door to more and more allowances of abortion in the future. “If we start abortion again in Arkansas, it will not end,” said Republican Rep. Cindy Crawford (no relation to the supermodel).
Idaho
Idaho’s trigger law was passed in 2020, and officially took effect on Aug. 25, 2022, following the Supreme Court’s decision. The law outlaws all abortions, with exemptions for rape, incest, or cases in which an abortion could save the pregnant person’s life.
In 2023, the state went further, passing what has been called one of the most restrictive abortion measures in the entire country. On April 5, Republican Gov. Brad Little signed legislation that made it illegal to assist a pregnant minor traveling out of state to obtain an abortion or provide them with abortion-inducing medication that was procured from another state. Violations could earn two to five years in prison.
“Giving [minors] money, giving them a ride, helping them organize the visit to a doctor out of state — all of the activity that’s required to help a young person leave the state — any of that would be punishable,” an advocate from the Center for Reproductive Rights outlined for NBC News.
In May 2023, CNN reported that the severely strict laws in Idaho are driving doctors out of the state due to their fears of “being tried as a felon simply for saving someone’s life.”
Kentucky
In Kentucky, abortions are totally outlawed, with no exceptions for rape or incest. They’re allowed only in the case of a serious health risk to the pregnant person’s life, and in those instances, patients must first have an in-person counseling session; they’re also required to wait 24 hours before they can undergo the procedure. Doctors who illegally perform an abortion face up to five years in prison.
In November 2022, voters in the state were given the chance to vote on a constitutional amendment that would have explicitly denied the right to abortion. The results surprised political commentators, as 52 percent of Kentucky voters rejected the ballot measure. While the results didn’t lift the state’s ban on abortion, it prevented that ban from being enshrined into the Constitution in a more direct way.
In the meantime, a lawsuit filed by abortion-rights groups had been circulating through Kentucky’s court system. The plaintiffs were the only two abortion clinics left in the state, and they claimed Kentucky’s ban violated the constitutional rights of their patients. After one court ruled that those plaintiffs didn’t have the “third-party standing” to make that case, the suit was officially dropped in June 2023. But Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, who were behind the suit, made clear they plan to try again: They’re currently seeking an actual patient to lead the case, which would resolve the question of standing and allow for a ruling on the merits of their argument rather than a procedural issue.
Louisiana
Louisiana is another state in which a total abortion ban immediately went into effect upon the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade. The legal exceptions to the ban in this state include instances in which pregnancy poses a serious risk to the pregnant person and the procedure could save their life, or in which the fetus isn’t expected to survive the pregnancy.
In May 2023, Louisiana state legislators rejected a proposal that would have added cases of rape and incest to that list of exceptions. Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, is in favor of some abortion restrictions but said he supports these exceptions: “I simply do not understand how we as a state can tell any victim that she must be forced by law to carry her rapist’s baby to term, regardless of the impact on her own physical or mental health, the wishes of her parents, or the medical judgment of her physician.”
The bill that would have added rape and incest exemptions failed in a committee meeting, when Republicans voted along party lines to prohibit the bill from being debated by the full House of Representatives. According to the AP, “they gave little to no reasoning for their opposition to the legislation during the meeting.”
Mississippi
Mississippi is a substantial part of the conversation about the legality in abortion of America, and that’s because the Supreme Court case that ultimately toppled Roe v. Wade originated in the state. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization pitted Mississippi health officer Thomas E. Dobbs against what was the state’s sole abortion clinic. The dispute centered around a law passed in 2018 that banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That timeframe caused controversy, given that most experts agree fetal viability doesn’t occur until around 24 weeks.
Dobbs v. Jackson made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and we know how that turned out: The court’s decision allowed Mississippi’s law to stand while also enabling trigger laws around the country that enacted similar bans immediately.
One notable component of Mississippi’s law is that it doesn’t contain any exceptions for incest, but does allow abortions in the event of rape. “For the purposes of this act, rape shall be an exception to the prohibition for an abortion only if a formal charge of rape has been filed with an appropriate law enforcement official,” the statute says — though it doesn’t get specific about who would classify as an “appropriate” official to whom a charge could be made.
Missouri
Abortion is totally banned in Missouri, with the only exemptions being cases in which the pregnant person’s life is in danger. The state was one of many with “trigger laws” on the books before the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe — these pieces of legislation were designed to instate bans on abortion as soon as those bans were ruled to be Constitutional.
In Missouri, that law is the Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act. Gov. Mike Parson activated the law the morning after Roe was invalidated. “Thanks to decades of conservative leaders, Missouri has become one of the most pro-life states in the nation, and our administration has always fought for the life of every unborn child,” he said.
In January 2023, the National Women’s Law Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit challenging this ban. While many pro-life supporters of abortion bans use religion as a fundamental reasoning for their stance, this case, called Rev. Traci Blackmon v. State of Missouri, makes the religious case for abortion. The plaintiff is a minister in the United Church of Christ, which voted in 1971 to acknowledge the right to abortion, and the suit claims that Missouri’s ban “unconstitutionally imposed one narrow religious belief as law.” The case is currently ongoing.
North Dakota
North Dakota had a trigger law on the books that was meant to ban abortions as soon as Roe v. Wade fell, but in March 2023, the state’s Supreme Court upheld an injunction on the law, putting it on hold during the proceedings of a lawsuit that asserted the ban violated the state’s constitution.
Less than a month later, however, Gov. Doug Burgum signed into law another bill that has been regarded as one of the country’s most stringent abortion restrictions. The procedure is totally banned except in cases of rape or incest — and even in those instances, abortion is only legal during the first six weeks of pregnancy, far earlier than what is generally regarded to be the moment of fetal viability.
Considering the North Dakota Supreme Court’s previous decision to put another ban on hold, it’s very likely that this law will face a similar challenge. But it remains in effect for now, and lawmakers said they aren’t deterred by what the justices have ruled earlier. “We’re going to send another message to the North Dakota Supreme Court. This is what this legislature wants. We want pro-life in North Dakota,” said House Majority Leader Mike Lefor.
Oklahoma
In May 2022, just weeks before the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed what was then the most restrictive abortion ban in the United States. As The New York Times explained it at the time, the law “relie[d] on civilian enforcement to sidestep Roe v. Wade”: It empowered private citizens to sue anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion, including a friend who drove someone to a clinic to get the procedure.
However, in May 2023, the Oklahoma Supreme Court invalidated part of the state’s provisions against abortion. The justices’ ruling hinged on language that allowed abortions in cases of “medical emergency” for the pregnant person. Doctors reported that being forced to wait for a specific “emergency” meant some women couldn’t get the care they needed until their condition dramatically worsened. One local OB/GYN told the AP that in her practice, she’d been forced to tell women, “‘We have to let you go home and monitor your condition, and if you start showing signs of infection or worsening blood pressure, then come back and we have the ability to legally treat you.”
But the elimination of this measure didn’t change much in the way of the availability of abortions, thanks to another Oklahoma law that dates back to 1910. It outlaws abortions unless they would save the pregnant person’s life, and that statute remains the law of the land in the state today.
South Dakota
A trigger law dating back to 2005 officially took effect upon the fall of Roe v. Wade, outlawing all abortions in the state except when the procedure can preserve a pregnant person’s physical health or save their life. Earlier in 2023, the South Dakota Code Commission formally updated language within its legal code to officially reflect the extent of the ban.
In 2023, two Republicans in the state legislature introduced bills seeking to define the “medical judgment” that must be made in cases when pregnancy could put a person’s life in danger. However, these bills were completely blocked from being heard on the floor by other Republican members.
Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt, who introduced one of those measures, explained that she hoped to make the law more specific in response to amplified discussion about the issue, which she said could ultimately be taken out of legislators’ hands if voters decide the current rules are too strict. “We have a ballot measure that is probably coming in 2024 that legalizes abortion for anybody. That’s one end,” Rehfeldt said. “Then we have our current trigger law that is in many people’s eyes very restrictive.”
Tennessee
Tennessee’s trigger law dates back to 2019, when the state legislature voted to outlaw abortion in the event Roe v. Wade was struck down. The Human Life Protection Act stipulates that all abortions are illegal, except in the event of “substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function,” and it also makes it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion.
In April 2023, Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed a new law that slightly widened doctors’ ability to decide what that “substantial and irreversible impairment” entails. The new legislation allows doctors to use their “reasonable medical judgment” as they decide whether an abortion could prevent serious injury to a pregnant person or save their life. The law also allows doctors to perform abortions in the event of ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, but it does not include an exemption for rape or incest.
Texas
In Texas, abortions are completely banned, with no exceptions for rape or incest, and private citizens have been empowered to sue providers who do offer the procedure. The law does offer one exception for abortions that are essential to the physical safety of the pregnant person, but even that provision has been cause for controversy.
In March 2023, five Texan women filed suit, claiming they were denied medically necessary abortions because of “widespread confusion among the medical community” about what actually constitutes a life-threatening pregnancy. “Texas’s abortion bans can and should be read to ensure that physicians have wide discretion to determine the appropriate course of treatment, including abortion care, for their patients who present with emergent medical conditions — without being second-guessed by the Attorney General, the Texas Medical Board, a prosecutor, or a jury,” the lawsuit claims. That case is currently pending.
On the lawmaking side, not much has changed in the state since Roe v. Wade fell. Texas’s most recent legislative session ended up as “a draw” between the right and the left in terms of abortion, according to Democratic Rep. Donna Howard. “For the first time that I can remember, for quite a few sessions, back to at least 2011, maybe before that, we haven’t really dealt with abortion,” she told the Texas Tribune.
Though there’s been talk on both sides of the aisle about fine-tuning the state’s legislation to make the language around exceptions that merit legal abortions more clear, we haven’t yet seen any movement to actually make that happen. But Gov. Greg Abbott has publicly said the law needs work in order to “clarify the ways that we are protecting the life of the mother.”
West Virginia
Shortly after the demise of Roe v. Wade, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice officially signed an abortion ban into law. “I said from the beginning that if legislators brought me a bill that protected life and included reasonable and logical exceptions I would sign it, and that’s what I did today,” he said.
The law does offer exceptions for medical emergencies and for rape and incest, but victims of those crimes must report their abortion to law enforcement 48 hours before the procedure — and they must do so within eight weeks of pregnancy for adults and 14 weeks for minors.
The statute also stipulates how abortions must be performed when they’re allowed. They’re required to take place in a hospital, which was interpreted as a shot at the Women’s Health Center, which had offered abortion services since 1976 and was the state’s only such clinic. Patients are also forced to wait 24 hours after they’ve received “counseling” to get their abortion, and physicians have been outlined as the only type of healthcare professional allowed to perform the procedure.
Wisconsin
After Roe v. Wade was struck down, Wisconsin reverted a law first passed all the way back in 1849. It contains no exceptions for rape or incest but does allow the procedure in cases in which pregnant women would die if forced to carry to term. Doctors who do give an unlawful abortion could be convicted of a felony and face up to six years in prison.
That’s currently being contested in a lawsuit brought forth by the state’s attorney general, Josh Kaul, who filed it almost immediately following Roe v. Wade’s demise. The suit argues that this 1849 law has been out of use for too long to be reinstated and that it conflicts with laws that were passed in the years since, such as a 1985 statute that says abortion is only illegal after the point of fetal viability.
Arguments in that case were heard in May 2023, and we’re waiting for the ruling. But whatever the court decides, it’s all but guaranteed to be contested on appeal, so this debate will likely reach the Wisconsin Supreme Court before it’s settled.
States where abortion is banned based on gestational limits
While the states above mostly do not allow abortions outside of very specific medical or criminal exceptions, others do consider the procedure legal up to a certain point in pregnancy.
The most generous of these limits are found in Wyoming and Montana, which allow abortion until the point of fetal viability — generally considered to be around 24 to 26 weeks. The procedure is legal until 22 weeks and six days in South Carolina, Indiana, and Ohio; until 18 weeks in Utah; and until 15 weeks and six days in Arizona. Something all these states have in common? There have been attempts in each to ban abortion entirely, or to dramatically decrease the timeframe when it’s legal. But those bans have so far been blocked by various courts, allowing the procedure to continue for now (up until that gestational limit, at least).
In Nebraska, abortion is banned after 12 weeks of pregnancy, but that was a compromise after weeks of debate on another bill that would have capped the availability of the procedure at only six weeks. When that legislation failed to advance, lawmakers ultimately pushed forward the 12-week measure that’s currently in effect.
North Carolina has been abiding by a rule that bans abortion after 20 weeks and six days, but that’s about to change. As of July 1, 2023, that will officially be reduced to 12 weeks. But a federal lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is already challenging that, and it remains to be seen whether the case could provoke any further revisions.
In Florida, abortions are currently banned after 15 weeks and six days, but Gov. Ron DeSantis is working hard to reduce that to six weeks. The 2024 presidential hopeful signed a six-week ban into law in April 2023, but it hasn’t yet been allowed to take effect. That’s because Florida’s Supreme Court is currently reviewing the 15-week ban that’s already on the books, and the six-week swap would only move forward if the court strikes the previous rule down.
Finally, the tightest gestational limit comes from Georgia, where abortions are banned after only six weeks of pregnancy. That’s currently being challenged, so it’s possible the rule could change eventually, but for now, the state’s Supreme Court has allowed the six-week ban to stand while they consider an appeal in the case.
What about the states where abortion is legal?
So far, we’ve discussed the ins and outs of the laws in 25 states, all of which have either flatly banned abortion, or conditionally banned it based on a certain pregnancy duration. In the other half of the country, abortion is considered legal — in many of those places, the procedure is allowed up until the point of fetal viability, but other states don’t have a gestational limit.
If your state isn’t one of the locales we dived into here, this thorough list from The New York Times includes details on what protections are in place in the other 25 states.
