The Supreme Court ruling issued on Friday in a Mississippi abortion case has overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, returning to the states the decision to regulate when or if a woman can get an abortion.
In some states, bans on abortion have remained on the books, but were blocked by the Roe and Casey v. Planned Parenthood decisions that made abortion legal. Other states introduced and passed “trigger laws,” or laws that would trigger a ban on abortion should Roe be overturned.
States that do not have trigger laws have passed laws known as “heartbeat bills,” making abortion illegal if a fetus’ heartbeat can be detected, generally at about six weeks.
As of Friday, 13 states had passed trigger laws that will ban abortions within days or weeks of the decision.
Abortions will be banned in three of the 13 states — Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota — immediately on Friday.
Four other states — Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota and Utah — will ban abortions when either the governor or attorney general certifies the Supreme Court ruling. The certification of the high court’s ruling would make the state’s trigger law constitutional.
Mississippi, the state that was a party to the case that the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, will ban abortions 10 days after the attorney general issues an opinion certifying that the trigger law is constitutional.
Wyoming’s trigger law says a ban on abortions will become state law effective five days after the governor certifies that Roe has been overturned.
For Texas, Tennessee and Idaho, it will take 30 days.
The state’s trigger law will take effect in Oklahoma once the attorney general certifies the Supreme Court ruling, despite the fact that the state has already banned abortion.
Five states that do not have trigger laws — Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and South Carolina — have seen state and circuit courts either block or strike down laws that banned most or all abortions.
With Roe being overturned, those laws will likely take effect within a month.
According to the abortion rights group Guttmacher Institute, 26 states will likely outlaw or severely restrict the procedure.
The 20 states where either abortion protections are in place or where abortion is likely to remain legal include: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Vermont, Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Hawaii, District of Columbia, Maryland and New Hampshire.
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