If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, more than 20 states – home to about half of the nation’s population – are likely to ban nearly all abortions. For women living in Mississippi, the closest place to get a legal abortion then might be Illinois.
However, experts predict the number of abortions performed in the US will fall by less than half. A widely cited analysis, from Caitlin Myers of Middlebury University, estimates that the decline in legal abortions would be about 13 percent. The number of all abortions – including illegal abortions, like those sent by mail to places where there is a ban – is likely to fall even less.
I find these numbers surprising. The Supreme Court appears to be on the cusp of revolutionizing the country’s abortion laws while having a more modest impact on abortion rates.
Today’s Newsletter tries to explain how this can happen, with the help of Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz, two Times reporters who covered the subject. Our goal was to preview what the Post-Roe scene might look like.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue an abortion ruling this month or early July. An initial opinion draft, obtained by Politico, argued that the court had leaning towards the complete reversal of Roe, allowing states to ban abortion. But the outcome is still uncertain.
Legal changes
The first point to understand is that abortion is already rarer in states can ban abortion than in the states would still be legal. For example, New York’s recent abortion rate is twice that of Texas, four times that of South Carolina, and about 17 times higher as of Missouri, according to CDC data.
“Many states that ban abortion have restricted access,” Margot said, pointing to Missouri, Mississippi and the Dakotas. “Closing the clinic there won’t result in much change, compared to current conditions.” In 2019, The Times published an explanatory piece, “For millions of American women, access to abortion is out of reach.”
Public opinion may also play a role: In conservative countries, more and more people are opposed to abortion, which means that a small fraction of women and couples choose to have an abortion when faced with a difficult choice.
Medical change
The second big factor is that abortion has begun to shift in ways that could make regulation more difficult.
More than half of all legal abortions are now performed with medication instead of surgery. In 2020 (most recent year with available data), market share is 54 percent, up from 37% in 2017 and will almost certainly continue to grow over the past two years. Claire and Margot wrote a helpful explainer about medical abortionare generally both safe and effective, although often occurring earlier in pregnancy than surgical abortion.
State bans can apply to all forms of abortion, and conservative states have tried to suppress medical abortion, as my colleague Kate Zernike reported. But stopping the pill form isn’t so easy. “These pills are quite easily accessible online and the law is difficult to enforce because they are sent exclusively by mail,” says Claire.
One major provider is Aid Access, an international organization run by Dutch doctor Rebecca Gomperts, committed to keeping abortion accessible even in places where it is illegal. Aid Access typically connects Americans with European doctors, and people can order medicine even if they’re not pregnant, to have it on hand if they want it later. (In 2014, Emily Bazelon Profile Gomperts in Times Magazine.)
Carole Joffe, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco who has studied the history of abortion, says Roe’s demise will prompt some women to turn to dangerously dangerous methods of ending pregnancy. physically – “like letting your boyfriend hit them in the stomach or throwing yourself downstairs or drinking dangerous herbs. ” However, Joffe added, “Now there is a very safe extralegal option.”
Who will be affected?
Even with these caveats in mind, overturning Roe would reduce access to abortion. This effect may be greatest among lower-income women and among black and Hispanic women. Many people will not have the resources to travel to another state and may not have access to a doctor, nurse, friend or loved one who can help them navigate the abortion pill ordering process.
“Actually, America without Roe would look very different to different people,” Claire and Margot wrote.
This is the part of a debate in which two parties agree on at least some facts, if not their meaning. Opponents of abortion sometimes insist that Roe reduced the population of non-white Americans. “A disproportionately high proportion of aborted fetuses are black,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito in leaked draft comments that requires overturning Roe.
Across much of the South — including Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas — more than half of the women who had abortions in 2019 were black or Hispanic, according to the CDC. A large part also young womanwith nearly 40 percent nationally under the age of 25.
“These are people who may be in jobs that don’t pay well or they may be in school,” said Kari White of the University of Texas at Austin, told The Times. “They may feel they don’t have the resources to raise a child.”
Key point
Roe’s overturn would be a radical legal change. But it won’t end the political battle over abortion any more than Roe did.
For decades, opponents of abortion have tried to limit access to abortion, and they have often succeeded in Republican-run states. If Roe fails, advocates of access to abortion will continue their efforts, including in states that outlaw abortion. And the rise of medical abortion has turned into a strategy that wasn’t available decades ago.
What if? Emily Bazelon asks if abortion rights last longer if more supporters had emphasized women’s equality rather than privacy.
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Sauce for penne al Baffo use cream, ham and tomato. The name is said to come from the phrase “so good you’ll lick your beard.”
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