Roe v Wade ruling will enable abortion bans across more than 20 US states

The decision of the US supreme court on Friday eliminates, after 50 years, a constitutional right for a woman in the country to have an abortion.

The court argued that it should now be up to politicians to decide on the issue.

This could lead to a patchwork of different rules applying across the US.

Already more than 20 states either have what are known as trigger laws to ban abortion if the constitutional right was removed or else have dormant legislation dating back to before the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling which prohibited terminations. These would be reactivated.

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Pelosi hits out at 'outrageous and heart-wrenching' decision to overturn Roe v Wade

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That could mean abortion may be unavailable in one state but accessible in another, leading to pressure on services in some locations or even to some conservative legislatures seeking to ban travel for terminations.

There has already been some experience of women in various parts of the country having to travel hundreds of miles to have an abortion.

[ US supreme court ruling ‘horrific step back for women’s rights’, say Irish activists ]

[ Roe v Wade: US supreme court strikes down abortion rights ]

[ Explainer: What is Roe v Wade and how does it affect abortion rights in the US? ]

In anticipation of the supreme court ruling some states with Republican majorities have already been putting in place legislation to curtail abortion.

Abortion access has been severely restricted in Texas, for example, since last September. The supreme court had refused to intervene to prevent the implementation of that state’s ban on abortions after about six weeks into pregnancy — which was seen at the time as a signal of its intent to overturn the 1973 “Roe v Wade precedent”.

Right-wing politicians in Texas were delighted with the ruling on Friday. The state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, said “abortion is now illegal in Texas”.

He said he was closing his office and marking the day as “an annual holiday — as a memorial to the 70 million lives lost” because of abortion.

In New York, however, the mayor Eric Adams offered the city as a safe haven for Americans seeking abortions. “To those seeking abortions around the country: know that you are welcome here.”

However, Democrats have warned that some conservatives will want to go much further than ending a constitutional right to abortion.

US president Joe Biden insisted his administration would strongly oppose any move by states to impose bans on women travelling for abortion or restricting access to medication — presumably abortion pills — through the post.

The speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, said Republicans in congress were “plotting a nationwide ban on abortion”.

She suggested Republicans wanted to “arrest doctors for offering reproductive care and women for terminating a pregnancy”. She said Republican extremists “are even threatening to criminalise contraception, as well as in-vitro fertilisation and post-miscarriage care”.

Liberals and Democrats are concerned that the ruling, while dealing only with abortion, could open the door to challenges on other social rights in the future.

The president noted comments made in an opinion in the ruling by conservative justice Clarence Thomas that the court should revisit issues such as the right to contraception and the right for same-sex couples to marry.

Thomas and other conservatives maintain that there are no explicit references in the US constitution to such social rights. He wrote in the judgment that the court “should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell”.

These cases dealt with contraception access, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage.

The abortion ruling has also heightened the criticism by liberals of the supreme court and the manner in which conservative justices were appointed to move it to the right.

The current conservative supermajority on the supreme court did not come about by accident. Over years conservative and religious groups as well as Republican politicians have planned and strategised to secure a court that would be tilted in their favour.

That was the backdrop to Republican senators refusing even to consider a hearing for Barack Obama’s nominee to the court, ostensibly as it was too close to the 2016 election. Republicans then reversed their position and confirmed a Trump nominee just weeks in advance of the 2020 election.

Trump appointments

As a result of this political manoeuvring and happenstance, Trump had the opportunity to reshape the court by appointing three justices.

Already there are questions being asked as to whether some of Trump’s nominees were fully truthful in their confirmation hearings.

Pelosi said they had maintained they “respected authority” and the “precedent of the court, that they respected the right of privacy in the constitution.”

“Were they not telling the truth then?” she asked.

Centrist Democrat senator Joe Manchin said he trusted that justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, whom he supported during their confirmation process, “when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans”.

Biden argued the court had “literally taken the United States back 150 years”. However, he suggested his powers to deal with the fallout were limited.

Democrats will now seek to try to use the supreme court’s decisions, not just on abortion but also on others such as on gun rights to generate support in the run-up to the midterm elections in November.

The president said if Americans wanted legislation to enforce abortion rights they needed to vote for members of Congress who would support such measures.

Pelosi criticised the “hypocrisy” of the court in issuing rulings based on what appeared to be conflicting reasons this week.

“Yesterday [on Thursday], they said the states cannot make laws governing the constitutional right to bear arms. And today they’re saying the exact reverse, that the states can overturn a constitutional right for 50 years, a constitutional right for women having the right to choose.”

“Their hypocrisy,” she added, “is enraging, but the harm is endless.”