Today's decision is set to reshape where women may be able to access
abortion services. John Yang has more now on how potential future
legal battles could play out at the state level.
Jury now that the right to an abortion has been overturned an estimated
26 states are certain or likely to ban the procedure. That's according
to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion
rights. So what's next in the legal battle over abortion?
Mary Ziegler is a law professor at the University of California Davis.
Her most recent book is dollars for Life, the anti abortion movement
and the Fall of the Republican establishment. Mary, Thanks for being
with us
We just showed that map from the Good Marker Institute. What does
this decision mean for a woman who may let's say in the in the coming
days learned she's pregnant and decides she wants to terminated.
At the moment that person would in many of these states only have
the option to travel out of state or to try to self managed and abortion.
So essentially what had been a constitutional right in all, 50 states
is now going to be protected in less than half what happens now to
the legal battle over abortion. What's the next step? What's the
next phase? Multiple phases? John. There are state constitutional
battles on placing unfolding in places like Michigan.
That is already the site of a struggle about whether there is a state
constitutional right to abortion. There will be, um, knocked down
political battles in states like Florida and North Carolina that
have yet to commit to having
Outright bans on abortion. And of course, they'll be legal battles
as well. Conservatives will probably come back to the U. S. Supreme
Court and ask for protection for fetal rights. Um states may try
to regulate
Out of state conduct right either preventing people from traveling
to get abortions or preventing doctors in blue states from performing
abortions on people from red states. Those fights, of course, raised
very complicated legal questions that could well end back up at the
Supreme Court.
You talked about abortion rights opponents coming back to the Supreme
Court to talk about, uh, fetal rights. Talk about that. What will
they be pressing for? The idea that this is really been the mean
constitutional premise of the anti abortion movement from the inception
is that the word person in the 14th amendment, which of course guarantees
equality under the law and due process of the law.
Applies before as well as after birth. So these advocates are going
to be pressing the Supreme Court to recognize that claim. And, of
course, if the Supreme Court were to do that, that would have the
effect of banning abortion everywhere. Not just of course in states
that may choose to do so. So in other words, this would be a federal
right a constitutional right. But on the other side
Exactly right. I mean, and I don't anticipate that happening soon.
I mean, Brett Kavanaugh, who's obviously would be a key vote on this.
I was trying. I think to telegraph and his concurrence today Essentially
that the Constitution is neutral. The Supreme Court should be neutral,
so I don't think there are five built at the moment. Um, for the
recognition of fetal personhood, But of course, if you had asked
me as little as two years ago, there weren't the votes.
To overturn Roe v. Wade. So this is a fast moving topic where things
can rapidly change your historian of the anti abortion movement.
What sort of give us the historians context or view of today?
Well, I think it's a fairly unprecedented moment. There have been
times when the Supreme Court has reversed decisions that discuss
constitutional rights. But nothing exactly like this. Really, I think
in modern history, it's also really a remarkable, of course, that
the Supreme Court has done this.
Involving the most well known Supreme Court decision, right. So the
Supreme Court in this decision quite clearly says this may damage
the court's legitimacy. This may upset the American people, but you
know that's not our problem essentially, and that's a remarkable
thing to see as well for a court that historically had been constrained
by fears of public reaction. Clearly, this court is unconstrained.
So this is a historic moment when it comes to the protections that
are enjoyed by women in pregnant people and see historical moment
in terms of the role of the Supreme Court in our democracy
at the University of California, Davis law School. Thank you very