Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many abortion laws, and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.
The United States abortion-rights movement is a sociopolitical movement in the United States supporting the view that a woman should have the legal right to an elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy, and is part of a broader global abortion-rights movement. The movement consists of a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body.
Abortion is a divisive issue in the United States. The issue of abortion is prevalent in American politics and culture wars, though a majority of Americans support continued access to abortion. There are widely different abortion laws depending on state.
This is a timeline of reproductive rights legislation, a chronological list of laws and legal decisions affecting human reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are a sub-set of human rights pertaining to issues of reproduction and reproductive health. These rights may include some or all of the following: the right to legal or safe abortion, the right to birth control, the right to access quality reproductive healthcare, and the right to education and access in order to make reproductive choices free from coercion, discrimination, and violence. Reproductive rights may also include the right to receive education about contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and freedom from coerced sterilization, abortion, and contraception, and protection from practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM).
The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy with few exceptions, others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy, while others allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal, several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist, such as parental consent or notification laws, requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, mandatory waiting periods, and counseling requirements.
A six-week abortion ban, also called a "fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents, is a law in the United States which makes abortion illegal as early as six weeks gestational age, which is when proponents claim that a "fetal heartbeat" can be detected. Medical and reproductive health experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say that the reference to a fetal heartbeat is medically inaccurate and misleading because a conceptus is not called a fetus until eight weeks after fertilization, as well as that at four weeks after fertilization, the embryo has no heart, only a group of cells which will become a heart. Medical professionals advise that a true fetal heartbeat cannot be detected until around 17 to 20 weeks of gestation when the chambers of the heart have become sufficiently developed.
Abortion in Oklahoma is illegal unless the abortion is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.
The Georgia House Bill 481 was an American law passed in 2019 that sought to prevent physicians in the U.S. state of Georgia from performing abortions beyond six weeks, except in special situations. The bill was strongly criticized by supporters of pro-choice policies, but it was praised by many supporters of pro-life policies. Notably, many celebrities in Hollywood threatened to boycott the state of Georgia if it were passed. Passed in 2019, it was initially ruled unconstitutional in July 2020. That ruling was reversed, however, in July 2022.
Abortion in Kansas is legal. Kansas law allows for an abortion up to 20 weeks postfertilization. After that point, only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health may an abortion be performed, with this limit set on the belief that a fetus can feel pain after that point in the pregnancy. The state also had detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement by 2007. Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication-induced abortions and private doctor offices in addition to abortion clinics were in place by 2013. In 2015, Kansas became the first state to ban the dilation and evacuation procedure, a common second-trimester abortion procedure. State laws about abortion have been challenged at the Kansas Supreme Court and US Supreme Court level. On August 2, 2022, Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Republican-controlled legislature to restrict or ban abortion in Kansas, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Abortion in Kentucky is illegal. There were laws in Kentucky about abortion by 1900, including ones with therapeutic exceptions. In 1998, the state passed legislation that required clinics to have an abortion clinic license if they wanted to operate. By the early 2010s, members of the Kentucky Legislature attempted to ban abortion in almost all cases and had also introduced the early abortion bans. Prior to 2019, Kentucky law prohibited abortions after week 22. This changed when the state legislature passed a law that moved the prohibition to week 6 in the early part of the year. In that year, 57% of people in Kentucky said abortion should be "illegal in all or most cases." A bill passed and made effective in April 2022 lowered the threshold to 15 weeks, the second most restrictive limit in effect in the United States behind Texas, and introduced regulations that made abortion illegal until it was blocked in federal court.
Abortion in Michigan is legal throughout all stages of pregnancy. A state constitutional amendment to explicitly guarantee abortion rights was placed on the ballot in 2022 as Michigan Proposal 22–3; it passed with 57 percent of the vote, adding the right to abortion and contraceptive use to the Michigan Constitution. The amendment largely prevents the regulation of abortion before fetal viability, unless said regulations are to protect the individual seeking an abortion, and it also makes it unconstitutional to make laws restricting abortions which would protect the life and health, physical and/or mental, of the pregnant individual seeking abortion.
Abortion in Vermont is legal at all stages of pregnancy. A 2014 Pew Research Center poll showed 70% of adults in the state believed abortion should be legal in most or all cases, the second highest percentage in the country. The state funds abortions deemed medically necessary for low-income women via Medicaid.
Abortion in California is legal up to the point of fetal viability. An abortion ban was in place by 1900, and by 1950, it was a criminal offense for a woman to have an abortion. In 1962, the American Law Institute published their model penal code as it applied to abortions, with three circumstances where they believed a physician could justifiably perform an abortion, and California adopted a version of this code. In 2002, California passed a law guaranteeing women the right to have an abortion "prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman." In 2022, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1, which amended the Constitution of California to explicitly protect the right to abortion and contraception by a margin of 33.76%.
Abortion in Maryland is legal at all stages of pregnancy. The first laws regulating abortion in the state were passed in 1867 and 1868, banning abortion except by a physician to "secure the safety of the mother." Abortion providers continued to operate both within and outside of the law. Legal enforcement became more strict from the 1940s through 60s, with numerous police raids on abortion providers. In 1968, Maryland passed a liberalized abortion law that clarified the wording of the previous law, allowing abortion in hospital settings in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or when life and health were endangered.
Abortion in Florida is currently legal up until the 15th week of gestation, whilst an embryonic heartbeat ban that restricts abortion after the 6th week of pregnancy is set to take effect on May 1, 2024. Both pieces of legislation were signed by Governor Ron DeSantis.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the court held that the Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion. The court's decision overruled both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), returning to individual states the power to regulate any aspect of abortion not protected by federal statutory law.
The 2022 Kansas abortion referendum was a rejected legislatively referred constitutional amendment to the Kansas Constitution that appeared on the ballot on August 2, 2022, alongside primary elections for statewide offices, with early voting from July 13. If enacted, the amendment would have declared that the Kansas Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion, given the Kansas state government power to prosecute individuals involved in abortions, and further declared that the Kansas government is not required to fund abortions.
Proposition 1, titled Constitutional Right to Reproductive Freedom and initially known as Senate Constitutional Amendment 10 (SCA 10), was a California ballot proposition and state constitutional amendment that was voted on in the 2022 general election on November 8. Passing with more than two-thirds of the vote, the proposition amended the Constitution of California to explicitly grant the right to an abortion and contraceptives, making California among the first states in the nation to codify the right. The decision to propose the codification of abortion rights in the state constitution was precipitated in May 2022 by Politico's publishing of a leaked draft opinion showing the United States Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The decision reversed judicial precedent that previously held that the United States constitution protected the right to an abortion.
2022 Michigan Proposal 3, the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative, also known as Reproductive Freedom for All, was a citizen-initiated proposed constitutional amendment in the state of Michigan, which was voted on as part of the 2022 Michigan elections. The amendment, which passed, codified reproductive rights, including access to abortion, in the Constitution of Michigan.
The 2023 Ohio reproductive rights initiative, officially titled "The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety", and listed on the ballot as Issue 1, was a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment that was adopted on November 7, 2023, by a majority of 56.8% of voters. It codified reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution, including contraception, fertility treatment, whether to continue one's own pregnancy, and miscarriage care, restoring Roe v. Wade-era access in Ohio and protecting "the right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability" while permitting restrictions after.
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