John: It was a year ago today
that the supreme court
overturned roe V. Wade, erasing
the nearly half-century old
constitutional right to seek an
abortion.
It was a tectonic shift, leaving
it up to each state to decide
whether abortions would be legal
within its borders.
Now as the 2024 election looms,
abortion is shaping up to be a
key issue.
In Charlotte, North Carolina,
vice president Kamala Harris
told abortion rights supporters
that their cause was not unlike
the civil rights movement of the
1960's.
Vp Harris: We, all of us, are
now called upon to advance the
promise of freedom.
Including the freedom of every
woman to make decisions about
her own body, not the government
telling her what to do.
[Applause]
John: In Washington, D.C., her
predecessor, former vice
president Mike pence, spoke at
an anti-abortion rally at the
Lincoln memorial and called for
nationwide ban on abortion.
Mr. Pence: We gather here
knowing that we've not come to
the end of this call.
We will never rest and never
relent until we restore the
sanctity of life to the center
of American law in every state
in the land.
John: Ali rogin looks at the
current state of abortion access
in America.
[Chanting]
Ali: When the ruling came down,
the reactions were immediate,
and passionate.
Supporters of abortion rights
mourned.
Kaylie: I was disgusted because
abortion's healthcare.
I mean, you can die giving
birth.
We don't even have universal
healthcare.
Women are going to go into debt
giving birth and it's just, it's
a healthcare issue.
Ali: Opponents celebrated.
Lydia: This has been by far the
best day of my life.
It's just there's now hope for
the women and children who have
been hurt and killed by
abortion.
Ali: Following the Dobbs
decision, abortion bans in 13
states immediately took effect,
restricting access to abortions.
Some states like Texas banned
abortions with almost no
exceptions -- and the penalties
are severe.
Under senate bill 8, anyone
caught helping someone access an
abortion can be sued, and the
state's trigger laws criminalize
doctors performing the
procedure.
They risk losing their medical
license, a $100,000 fine, and
prison time.
One study revealed that the
average travel time for an
abortion increased from 28
minutes in 2021 to over an hour
and a half in 2022.
A separate study found that in
the first 100 days post-roe, 66
clinics across 15 states were
forced to stop performing
abortions.
But the clinics that stayed open
saw an influx of out-of-state
patients.
Dr. Goodrick: We had a woman
travel from Oklahoma.
We've had women travel from
Louisiana and Texas coming here.
If we were closed, where would
they go?
Ali: One case crystallized the
new reality post roe -- that of
a ten year old rape victim from
Ohio who had to travel to
Indiana for an abortion.
Mary Ziegler is a legal
historian and constitutional law
professor at the university of
California.
Mary: The idea of a ten year old
child being sexually assaulted
and then denied access to
abortion seemed to, I think,
many conservatives to be kind of
just a scare tactic, not
something that we would see in
real life.
And the fact that it happened so
quickly, I think, was a reminder
that the America we live in now
is very different than the one
before the supreme court
reversed roe V. Wade.
Pres. Biden: These are the laws
that not only put women's lives
at risk, these are laws that
will cost lives.
What we're witnessing is a giant
step backward in much of our
country.
Ali: As pressure mounted,
president Biden signed executive
orders to help preserve access
to abortion medication and
emergency contraception.
But their impact was limited,
says Tracy wietz, the director
of the center on health, risk
and society at American
university.
Tracy: Executive actions are
incredibly important.
They're symbolically important,
and they make small differences,
but only congress and state
legislatures can secure the
right to abortion for people in
the United States.
Mary: President Biden can't tell
the supreme court how to
interpret the constitution.
And the courts themselves,
especially the U.S. Supreme
court, is very conservative now.
And so I think that's made the
Biden administration cautious
and potentially with reason.
Ali: Grassroots activists and
abortion rights groups came up
with ways to get around the new
laws.
One California doctor proposed a
floating abortion clinic in the
gulf of Mexico.
Planned parenthood launched a
mobile abortion unit in the
midwest.
And the healthcare company just
the pill, which delivers
abortion medication, launched a
mobile clinic in Colorado.
It parks near the border with
states where abortion access is
restricted to let visitors
access pills.
But access to one of those pills
came under threat in April.
A federal judge in Texas ruled
that the drug mifepristone had
been improperly cleared for use
by the fda 20 years earlier.
For now, providers can still
prescribe mifepristone, as they
wait for a decision from a
federal appeals court.
Meanwhile, abortion began
playing a major role at the
ballot box.
Kansas voters were the first to
weigh in on post-roe policy,
last August.
They rejected an amendment to
the state's constitution that
would have said it did not
guarantee the right to an
abortion.
Critics said it was meant to
curtail abortion rights in a
state where the procedure was
legal until 22 weeks.
Mary: Kansas is a conservative
state that generally elects
Republicans.
America is so divided and so
partisan that it was the first
time we got a chance to see what
voters would do if presented the
abortion issue directly rather
than asked, you know, do you
want a Republican or a Democrat?
This is just a straight up and
down what do you think about
abortion rights in your state?
And what we learned from that
was pretty revealing.
Ali: Abortion remained a major
issue through the midterm
elections.
Voters in California, Michigan,
Vermont, and Kentucky enshrined
abortion protections in their
state constitutions.
In six states, new abortion bans
have been blocked by state and
county judges.
And the debates over abortion
access aren't falling entirely
on partisan lines.
In South Carolina, five women
senators -- including three
Republicans -- formed a
filibuster to stop a six week
abortion ban.
But they failed to block it, and
the bill became law in may.
Sen. Mcleod: It's so
disheartening to think that 41
men in this body can make
decisions for women and girls
that will impact women and girls
across our state for generations
to come.
Ali: Today, abortions at any
stage are still banned in 14
states.
Georgia does not allow abortions
after 6 weeks.
Nebraska after 12 weeks.
Arizona and Florida after 15
weeks.
Utah after 18 weeks.
And North Carolina after 20
weeks.
Tracy: The vast majority of
abortions in the United States
are to people who face the
structural inequities of our
country -- that is, people who
are low income and people of
color.
And that's because of
longstanding inequalities in
access to health care.
Those are also the people who
struggle with having to travel,
with having to take time off,
with having to find additional
resources, financial resources
to get to a state that could be
thousands of miles away in order
to have an abortion.
Ali: Now, a year after roe V.
Wade was dismantled, the united
States is a patchwork of
abortion laws.
Mary: I would describe the
landscape when it comes to
abortion access in America today
as chaotic and fluid.
And chaos means confusion for
patients, right?
It means confusion for doctors.
The harder it is to figure out
where law and politics are
going, the more frightened
people become.
Ali: And as states decide what
happens next, many women are
forced to navigate the chaos.
For "Pbs news weekend," I'm Ali
rogin.
♪♪