A year ago, on June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, thus allowing several states in the country to ban or restrict access to abortion. Those in the “pro-choice” camp today denounce “warnings come true.”
• Read also: America fractured a year after Supreme Court reversal on abortion
• Read also: Former Vice President Mike Pence challenges his rivals on abortion
Closure of clinics, endless waiting times and the impossibility for women to terminate their pregnancies prematurely despite the growing risks to their health: these are the consequences of this reversal of the law that the “pro-choice” people feared and denounced , reported CBS News.
The US media reports that at least 25 states have either completely banned abortion or restricted its access.
In the past 12 months, 13 states have passed near-total abortion bans, and at least a dozen more have approved new laws limiting access.
In the Midwest and South of the country, states like Illinois and Virginia have become islands of access to abortion, surrounded by other states with more restrictive laws. As a result, their clinics have seen an increase in the number of patients coming from a neighboring state to avail of their services.
For example, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri Medical Center operates another center in Fairview Heights, Illinois, where wait times have gone from two or three days to nearly three weeks. More than 85% of patients at this center who have abortions are from out of state, according to information from CBS News.
New restrictions to come
Illinois, Florida, North Carolina and Colorado saw significant increases in the total number of abortions performed in the nine months since the ruling, according to a new report from WeCount.
Some states will soon join those that have enforced restrictive abortion laws. This is particularly the case in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis enacted a law banning it after six weeks of pregnancy in April. Last May, the North Carolina General Assembly also voted to override Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s veto and ban abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
In Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, abortion is completely prohibited with a few exceptions, and Georgia allows them for up to six weeks.
Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver a speech Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina, to advocate for nationwide legislation to protect abortion rights — a prospect currently unlikely amid a deeply divided Congress. .
Mme Harris will deliver his speech a week before the new Republican-backed law takes effect in that state, which will ban abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, up from 20 weeks at the time of this writing, according to the information from Reuters.