Americans in red states see abortion access slipping away

In states where abortion is no longer legal, nearly half of residents report that access to abortion has narrowed since the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade.

A small but significant number of Americans know someone who crossed state lines to have an abortion, underwent birth control, or delayed a pregnancy in the months following the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that nullified the constitutional right to have an abortion. . almost half a century later.

Results, from the new NPR-Ipsos survey, reflect a contradictory new reality. In about half of the states, Republican majorities don’t want easy access to abortion. On the other hand, the Democratic majority believes that abortion should be available to everyone.

Nearly 3 in 10 Americans told pollsters that access to abortion has declined since the Dobbs decision. This proportion has risen to 44 percent in states where abortion is illegal or otherwise unprotected.

Abortion is now effectively banned in at least a dozen states, except in a medical emergency. Some states allow abortion in cases of rape or incest. Others don’t.

Several abortion bans in the red states remain unanswered in the courts. Guttmacher Institute, Abortion Rights Research Group, Predicts Abortions will be bannedg in 24 states as soon as the dust after Dobbs clears. A flurry of laws and litigation will make abortion largely legal on the East and West coasts, as well as parts of the upper Midwest and lower Southwest, and largely illegal throughout the rest of the world.

This patchwork reflects the sharp national divide in opinion about Rowe and abortion.

Seven out of ten Republicans agree with Dobbs’ decision, according to an NPR-Ipsos poll. Two-thirds of Republicans believe abortion should be illegal “in most or all cases.” Only 9% think their state’s abortion laws are too strict.

In political circles, Democrats overwhelmingly agree with Rowe and mourn Dobbs. 84% believe that abortion should be completely or almost completely legal. Only 4 percent want more restrictive laws.

As states roll out new bans, a new debate is brewing about whether there is any real access to abortion under the strictest laws.

In theory, a pregnant woman admitted to a hospital in Texas, Louisiana, or Mississippi with a dangerous complication should still be eligible for an abortion.

“If you go to the emergency room, they have to treat you by law,” said David O’Steen, former executive director of the National Right to Life Committee. “The pro-life movement doesn’t want mothers to die.”

These exceptions defined laws and helped anti-abortion legislators get them passed. Only 15 percent of Republicans believe abortion should be banned in all cases, according to a new poll.

Anti-abortion activists argue that the exceptions, taken together, “removed what was largely the subject of debate in the abortion movement,” O’Steen said.

However, a New York Times investigation found that very few of the promised exceptions haI was given. The Times reported that doctors and hospitals were “refusing patients, saying ambiguous laws and the threat of criminal penalties make them unwilling to check the rules.”

The state of Louisiana, which allows abortion in cases where it is necessary to protect the patient’s health and in cases involving fatal birth defects, has not recorded a single abortion since its ban became law, the Times found. Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas reported low abortion rates under the new laws.

“If the data shows that abortion doesn’t happen, then it proves that exceptions exist only on paper, not in practice,” says Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine who studies access to abortion.

A Times report tracking Dobbs’ aftermath found a Mississippi woman who said she couldn’t find a doctor to get an abortion after she was raped. An Ohio woman facing dangerous pregnancy complications tried to have an abortion in her state but was denied.

“There is a lot of ambiguity, confusion and fear around exceptions, what they are and how they can be interpreted,” said Rachel Jones, chief research fellow at the Guttmacher Institute.

Even before Dobbs, in an era when abortion remained legal throughout the country, entrenched opposition made it virtually unavailable in many places.

As of 2020, six states was onabortion clinic everyand 89 percent of US counties had no clinics at all—the cumulative effect of decades of restrictions imposed by anti-abortion lawmakers.

“What does it mean if you have one clinic in your state and it’s hundreds of miles away?” Jones said. Do you have access to abortion?

Despite the restrictions, the annual number of abortions rose. The Guttmacher Institute reported 930,160 abortions in 2020, up from 862,320 in 2017. Preliminary data for 2021 point to a further uptrend, Jones said.

Since Dobbs, 13 states have enacted “trigger” laws banning abortion immediately or after state action. In most of these states, the number of abortions performed in the second half of 2022 “hasn’t practically dropped to zero,” Jones said.

The bans have fueled an increase in interstate travel for legal abortions. Clinic in Granite City, Illinois informed that 86 percent of his patients after Dobbs arrived from out of state.

In the midterm elections, voters in several states considered voting measures to protect or restrict abortion. Voters voted in favor of abortion rights in every case, endorsing abortion rights protections in California, Vermont, and Michigan and rejecting abortion restrictions in Kentucky, Kansas, and Montana.

The result suggested a backlash after Dobbs and the abortionists. Abortion rights activists admired “the people who voted for Rand Paul,” a conservative Kentucky senator, “and also voted for access to abortion,” said Angela Vazquez-Giroux, vice president of communications and research for NARAL Pro-Choice America. .

Independent voters may have played a decisive role in the state’s elections. In an NPR-Ipsos poll, independents said they would be more in favor of abortion than opposed, by a margin of 2 to 1.

Abortion rights advocates, stunned by Dobbs’ decision, drew new inspiration from the state’s victories.

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Anti-abortion activists, stung by the defeats, “will do everything in their power to prevent voters from making this decision in the future,” Wilkinson said. “Because they will lose if they let voters make that decision.”

It can be hard to sell. If the NPR-Ipsos poll proved anything, it’s that Americans love the ballot. Overwhelming majorities of Democrats and Republicans said they would support using a vote or a referendum of voters to decide on abortion rights in their states.

O’Steen of the National Committee on the Right to Life described the victory of abortion rights in the midterm elections as a unique event fueled by Dobbs. He predicted that anti-abortion organizers would continue to campaign “state by state.”

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