Where abortions are currently banned or strictly restricted and where they may soon be. What are the changes after Roe v Wade? The Supreme Court’s historic decision Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade has made abortion illegal or severely limited in at least 11 states.
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Where abortions are currently banned or strictly restricted and where they may soon be
According to research by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice organization, twelve additional states have regulations in place that pave the path for them to be immediately banned or severely restricted. New legislation is expected to be passed in many other states as well.
Some states have a variety of anti-abortion measures in place. States that haven’t put six-week limits in place yet are now fighting these bans in state courts or working with their attorneys general to find a solution.
States with strict abortion laws
Abortion is illegal in Ohio after six weeks, for example. For the time being, Arizona may not enforce its pre-Roe prohibition. The pre-Roe prohibition is expected to be overturned by Michigan’s governor. As a result, Texas has already implemented a six-week moratorium. According to the Texas attorney general, additional pre-Roe prohibitions are still in existence. There are restrictions in place in Wisconsin and West Virginia, but it’s not clear how strictly they will be enforced.
In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that a woman has the right to an abortion until the baby is “viable” outside of the uterus. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the court almost completely overturned that decision. Laws that had been held up in court may now be passed by the states, as well as new ones.
What current laws enforce abortion bans and restrictions?
Abortion restrictions in states before Dobbs ranged into three major forms. 
The first is the trigger ban, which prohibits abortion in most cases and takes effect once Roe v. Wade is overruled. To begin with, there are the pre-Roe prohibitions, which are antiquated laws still on the books that might now be enforced, and then there are the more modern laws that restrict or outright prohibit abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Several states have enacted legislation in more than one category. When Roe was overruled, 13 states had trigger bans, which were laws that would take effect immediately, by state certification, or after a 30-day waiting period, if necessary. 
The Guttmacher Institute’s Elizabeth Nash, a state policy specialist, said that these laws override whatever other regulations the state may have in place, such as restrictions after a certain number of weeks of pregnancy. According to Nash, there is no limit on gestational age, and the trigger prohibition extends throughout pregnancy.
Trigger Laws
Several states, including Arkansas, Missouri, and South Dakota, have trigger laws in place as of Friday. Pre-Roe abortion bans in five more states that don’t have trigger laws may now be imposed, depending on legislative or judicial enforcement in those states.
Pre-Roe abortion laws
The pre-Roe prohibition in Arizona has been in effect since the state was created. In many places, it is illegal to have an abortion after a certain number of weeks of pregnancy, but most of those places have trigger bans. If court challenges to the bans are abandoned, four of the five states without trigger legislation will have six-week restrictions that will go into force on July 1.
On the list of those, only Ohio’s is in operation at the moment. According to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, there are currently laws protecting the right to abortion in sixteen states and the District of Columbia, the majority of which preserve the right before the time of fetal viability.
Pre-Roe abortion prohibitions
Some states have laws on the books that were in place before the Roe decision and have been unenforced since. Abortion laws enacted before Roe v. Wade are still in effect in places like Michigan and Wisconsin. According to Nash, Democratic governors and attorneys general may be reluctant to enforce these laws. The attorney general of Wisconsin has said that he won’t enforce the state’s ban on abortion, but all abortion clinics in the state stopped their services on Friday. 
Depending on the state, Republicans may be more likely to push for laws to be enforced or ask a court to let laws that have been contested in the past go into effect in West Virginia and Arizona. Nash predicted that this would take place rapidly in a matter of days or weeks.
Early pregnancy abortion bans
After six or eight weeks of gestational age, abortion is prohibited. This reduces the window of opportunity for abortion to a few weeks. Only Texas’ prohibition had been upheld in court, but that might change depending on how the courts rule now that additional states’ restrictions have gone effective. As far as is known, the state of Ohio has already done so. 
The first day of a woman’s menstrual cycle is used to determine the start of her pregnancy. A woman may conceive and give birth during ovulation or within two weeks after the first day of the menstrual cycle.
Pregnancy may be detected within four weeks after a woman’s first menstruation. A pregnant woman who chooses to get an abortion in a state that prohibits abortions after six weeks normally has roughly two weeks to do so.
