A Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade could bring abortion bans to as many as half the states in the country already poised to prohibit the procedure. Such a move would also have knock-on effects on the primarily blue states that would maintain access to abortion.
A Roe v. Wade reversal — and the flood of abortion restrictions such a ruling would usher in — stands to affect the distance women would have to travel to their nearest clinic, according to a new report released this week by the Guttmacher Institute. The institute, which favors abortion rights, used data from the US Census Bureau to estimate the number of women of reproductive age living in each Census block and calculated the driving distance to the closest abortion clinic.
Illinois, North Carolina and California are among the states that could see the biggest jump in out-of-state abortion patients, as their clinics would be closest for women whose own states are positioned to quickly ban the procedure, according to Guttmacher’s analysis.
In states like Louisiana, Texas and Idaho, women would see the distance they’d have to travel to the nearest clinic increase by tenfold or more, if Roe v. Wade was reversed and abortion bans went into effect in the states most likely to implement them.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Texas’ six-week abortion ban, which prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac activity, could remain in place. The justices, however, said that abortion providers had the right to challenge the law in federal court.
The law appears to run afoul of the constitutional protections for pre-viability abortions — a point usually around 23 weeks into the pregnancy — that the Supreme Court enshrined in its 1973 Roe decision.
The Texas law has already given a preview of what abortion access would like if other states were allowed to implement extreme limits on the procedure or outright bans. Clinics in Oklahoma and Kansas have reported major surges in Texas patients, prompting delays for residents in their own states to get appointments, while Texas women have traveled as far as Colorado and California to obtain the procedure, according to court filings in the case.
During oral arguments in November, justices limited their review to the law’s novel structure, which bars state officials from enforcing it. Instead, private citizens — from anywhere in the country — can bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant person seeking an abortion in violation of the law. Critics say the law was crafted to shield it from challenges in federal courts and stymie attempts by abortion providers and the government to sue the state and block implementation.
CNN’s Ariane de Vogue contributed reporting to this post.
