More Than Half of States Will Ban Abortion if Roe Is Overturned, Expert Says

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

56% : "As national and state pro-life organizations, representing tens of millions of pro-life men, women, and children across the country, let us be clear: We state unequivocally that any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women is not pro-life and we stand firmly opposed to such efforts."
53% : "Women are victims of abortion and require our compassion and support as well as ready access to counseling and social services in the days, weeks, months, and years following an abortion," the letter stated.
45% : Most states have limits on abortion around viability, with states in the middle of the country and the South having limits at about 22 weeks, said Elizabeth Nash, interim associate director of state issues at the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights organization, during a webinar sponsored by the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.
44% : "If Roe is overturned, if this draft opinion holds, we do expect that 26 states are likely to ban abortion -- by that we mean basically the states in the Plains, the Midwest, and the South will try to implement pre-Roe bans, 'trigger' bans, or bans that have been adopted in the past couple of years that are total bans or early bans," Nash said.
44% :Rebekah Fenton, MD, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist in training in Chicago, said that she has "already seen some laws suggesting that they will not only limit abortion but also access to IUDs and Plan B," the emergency contraception, due to a false belief that such contraceptives can terminate a pregnancy.
40% : If those 26 states ban abortion, "that affects 36 million women of reproductive age who will live in a state without abortion access," she noted.
40% :How abortion bans -- especially those laws being considered that would define abortion as homicide -- will affect assisted reproduction is also a question, Nash said.
40% : It depends a little bit on how the state bans abortion ... as well as how the state actually defines pregnancy and personhood, and homicide."
38% : "The next generation of physicians may not be adequately trained to care for miscarriage, for abortion, or for complications of pregnancy that arise in the mid-trimester, and that's definitely a concern," she said.
36% : Abortion will become illegal in slightly more than half of states if the Supreme Court's leaked draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade becomes final, while many of the remaining states are working to ensure that abortion continues to be accessible there, according to one expert.

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