22 States Have Abortion Bans on Their Books

Vox: “According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-reproductive rights research group, and to news reports tracking recent anti-abortion legislation, 22 states already have laws on the books that either ban abortion outright or ban it very early in a pregnancy.”

“These aren’t just the so-called ‘trigger laws,’ which are designed to quickly take effect with minimal to no legislative effort if Roe is overturned. Oklahoma and several other states still have abortion bans from before 1973, when Roe was originally handed down, that were never repealed during the half-century in which Roe prevented them from operating. Other states have passed new abortion bans since 1973.”

“The reason these extant bans haven’t been enforced is that anyone charged with violating them would have won in court, because Roe forbids states from banning abortions. Without Roe, however, that would no longer be the case.”