Post-roe

Within 9 months of the Roe decision, 188 bills to restrict abortion were introduced in 41 states. As described in Chapter 5, post-Roe statutes included requirements of spousal or parental consent, hospitalization for second trimester abortions, mandatory waiting periods, and funding restrictions.

In the post-Roe period, however, state authority was largely taken away by the federal courts (strict scrutiny analysis prevailed), yet abortion was a lively issue in many state legislatures.

On July 3, 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld three key provisions of the Missouri statute and, though it didn’t overturn Roe, set back the “pro-choice” movement more than any decision in the post-Roe period.

Conversely, a substantively minimalist jurisprudence, allowing the outright prohibition of abortions, is equally unworkable; in the years before Roe, when nontherapeutic abortions were prohibited in nearly every state, abortions were almost as common as they are in the post-Roe period (albeit less safe).

It is probably safe to assume that the effort will begin again once the reality of a post-Roe America sets in.

Our goal is to preview what a post-Roe landscape might look like.

The post-Roe rise in births in the U.S. will be concentrated in some of the worst states for infant and maternal health. Plans to improve these outcomes are staggeringly thin.

Furthermore, he says, “in this #MeToo and post-Roe era [with the rollback of reproductive rights]^([sic]) we find ourselves in, the perceived risks associated with sex are higher, particularly for women.[…]