Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

The governor, John Bel Edwards, signed a separate law this week detailing criminal penalties for the distribution or delivery of abortion pills, though the most far-reaching anti-abortion bill, which would have classified the procedure as homicide, failed in the legislature in May.Still, many civil rights advocates in Louisiana, where there were three clinics performing abortions before Friday, are deeply concerned that the laws on the books could be carried out in such a way that pregnant women seeking abortions could be exposed to criminal penalties. In 2019, after then-President Donald J. Trump had already appointed two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, New York passed the Reproductive Health Act, which enshrined the right to abortion, expanded access, and allowed abortions after 24 weeks to protect the mother's health or if the fetus was not viable. The Supreme Court ruling came as an unsurprising blow to the abortion rights activists in Mississippi who had sued on behalf of Jackson Women's Health Organization, the state's sole abortion clinic, after the state passed a law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Dr. Cheryl Hamlin, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Massachusetts who travels regularly to Mississippi to help women who are seeking abortions at Jackson Women's Health Organization, which is also known as the Pink House, said neighboring states would see an increase in the number of women traveling from Mississippi seeking abortions. A new state law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy is set to take effect on July 1.Many patients in Florida get medication abortions, which involve taking two different drugs, 24 to 48 hours apart, and are authorized for the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Laws passed in recent decades include a ban on certain types of abortion procedures, a ban on abortion after 20 weeks and a mandated waiting period. A bill in Oklahoma would make abortions illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a $100,000 fine, unless the abortion would save the life of a pregnant woman.