Anti-abortion Movement and Abortion-rights Groups are planning for a New Abortion Fight

Listen to this article

A reviving anti-abortion movement is looking to press its advantage in state-by-state battles while abortion-rights supporters prepare to play defense. Both sides are supposed to be operating on the assumption that a court will either overturn or seriously weaken Roe. State policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, Elizabeth Nash said, “We have a storm to weather. We have to weather the storm so that in the future 5, 10, and 15 years from now. We’re talking about how we managed to repeal all these abortion bans”. The institute also estimated that as many as 26 states would institute some sort of abortion-access restrictions within a year if permitted by the court. At least 12 states have triggered bans on the books, with restrictions that would kick in automatically if the justices overturn or weaken federal protections on abortion access.

The recent case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerns a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Moreover, the case of Roe v. Wade was reaffirmed in a subsequent 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It allows states to regulate but not ban abortion up until the point of fetal viability, at roughly 24 weeks. All six of the court’s conservative justices, including Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barret have indicated that they would uphold the Mississippi law. The director of state media campaigns for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Ianthe Metzger said, “There’s no doubt that what we heard from the Supreme Court was incredibly disturbing. It wasn’t really surprising but it was alarming”.

The director of outreach for anti-abortion Right to Life League, Susan Arnall said she was particularly encouraged by Justice Samuel Alito’s emphasis on the concept of “viability” for the fetus as a guiding principle on when to ban the termination of a pregnancy. She also predicted that modern advancements in medicine will continue to shrink the window in which a fetus is not viable. It is opening the door to a host of medically intricate state-level debates. Arnall said, “Viability is something that is subject to medical science. It’s going to get intensely legal and intensely medical. It’s going to be a battle of lawyers and doctors”. The president of CatholicVote, Brian Burch said, “People are realizing that seven months from now, we’ll probably be dealing with this on a state level. This will become much more prominent in state electoral races, especially governor’s races”.