Abortion was automatically outlawed in 18 US states as soon as Roe v. Wade was overturned, thanks to specially-devised ‘trigger laws’ and historic bans that were automatically reenacted after Friday’s ruling.
Thirteen states prepared trigger laws which would automatically outlaw terminations in the event of a ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, which was widely-anticipated.
They are: Arkansas; Idaho; Kentucky; Louisiana; Mississippi; Missouri; North Dakota; Oklahoma; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; Utah and Wyoming.
Abortion bans in those states will now become law within 30 days.
Five other states have also now banned terminations, after historic laws superseded by the 1973 Roe ruling automatically came back into place.
Among those five are two Democrat-governed states – Michigan and Wisconsin.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers have both sought to overturn those bans in the court. But they remain in place for now, and Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin announced Friday afternoon that it was suspending terminations while awaiting clarification on the law.
Other states with newly-re-enacted historic bans are Alabama, Arizona and West Virginia.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has announced the historic ban will be superseded by a recent law banning terminations after 15 weeks.
But that edict hasn’t been enshrined in state law, and pro-lifers could end up battling Ducey to keep the historic ban on all terminations, leaving abortion providers uncertain of whether they can operate in the meantime.
Eight other states are also set to enact new anti-abortion laws. Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina all attempted to ban abortion after the six week mark.
Those laws were branded unconstitutional, but will likely be revisited now Roe has ended. And Florida, Indiana, Montana as well as Nebraska are all working on plans to ban or restrict terminations.
Hours after Roe v. Wade was announced, GOP Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin announced he’d asked four Republican lawmakers to begin drawing up legislation banning abortion after 15 weeks.
But Youngkin’s party faces a very slim majority in both state house and senate, with many of his fellow Republicans likely to be undecided on whether to back an abortion ban.
And Kansas – which hasn’t enforced any sort of abortion crackdown – will hold a referendum in August on whether to ban abortion there.
More than half of all US states have some kind of abortion ban law that will likely now take effect following Friday’s news that Roe v Wade has been overturned by the United States Supreme Court.
In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers said his administration is looking at every option to fight abortion bans in the state.
‘We’re going to do everything we can in my power, whether it’s executive action or working with others on other opportunities, to fight this as long and hard as we can,’ Evers told WISN. ‘This is really important.
‘Think about what was done today to the women of Wisconsin and women of this country. Essentially, politicians now are in charge of their reproductive health. I mean honest to God, how could anything be more scary for our women for the state of Wisconsin?’
Meanwhile, in Ohio, where abortions are currently banned after six weeks, state Attorney General Dave Yost announced that his office was filing a motion to dissolve the state’s halt on its controversial ‘Hearbeat Law.’
The bill was signed in 2019 by Gov. Mike DeWine, but a federal judge blocked the law quickly, which is likely to go through now that Roe V. Wade has been overturned.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that immediately protects patients and health providers in California from civil lawsuits based on other states’ laws, KCRA reported.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Newsom in condemning the Supreme Court’s decision and vowed to protect people under the new California law.
‘This is a dark day for our little girls and all our children, who will now come of age in a nation with fewer rights, fewer freedoms and fewer protections than the generation before them,’ Bonta said in a statement.
‘That is not progress. But on days like this, I’m more determined than ever to fight like hell for my daughters and yours, for all pregnant persons all those who deserve a future with more rights, more freedom, not fewer.’
Like in Ohio, Alabama leaders rushed to restrict abortion laws, with its court immediately moving to dissolve an injuction on the state’s abortion ban.
Alabama’s Human Life Protection Act makes it unlawful ‘for any person to intentionally perform or attempt to perform an abortion’ unless ‘an abortion is necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother.’
The controversial law was halted following a lawsuit claiming it violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which the state court agreed with, but State Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a motion that the law should go through, which was immediately granted by U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson, ABC 3340 reported.
‘The State of Alabama’s emergency motion to lift the injunction and reinstate Alabama’s 2019 law, which prohibits abortions in most instances, has been granted,’ Marshall wrote in a statement. ‘Both the federal district court and the plaintiffs recognized that there is no basis for a continued stay of the duly-enacted law in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.’
Anyone who takes an unborn life in violation of the law will be prosecuted, with penalties ranging from 10 to 99 years for abortion providers.’
Utah’s trigger law is also now in effect, banning abortion in the Beehive State with exceptions if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, or if it brings serious health risks to the mother or unborn child.
The law, established in 2020, was contingent on the Supreme Court ruling, and those who violate it could face up to 15 years in prison, and abortion clinics and physicians who conduct the service would risk losing their licenses.
Karrie Galloway, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association and Planned Planned Parenthood Action Council of Utah, said in a news conference that the law created a ‘dark day’ for Americans.
‘As soon as it’s certified, we will have to stop performing any abortions here in Utah,’ Galloway said of the trigger law, ‘and we will have to direct anyone who needs comprehensive reproductive health care to a friendlier state in the union, of which we have many, to be able to live their lives as they want.’
This is an excerpt from Daily Mail.
