In the decades since Roe, individual states have enacted a slew of restrictions to make it as difficult as possible for abortion clinics to operate.
Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers, or TRAP laws, impose very specific regulations on clinics. Oftentimes, these restrictions are so expensive that the costs of implementing them cause many clinics to close down altogether.
These include requirements on the width of corridors, the size and equipment of procedure rooms, and mandating that clinics have admission privileges at local hospitals, even though less than 0.5% of abortions result in complications.
Research has tracked the number of abortion clinics dropping after states have passed TRAP laws. Five states now have just one remaining abortion clinic.
Sources: Guttmacher Institute, Business Insider, Texas Policy Evaluation Project
The Supreme Court struck down one of the most extreme TRAP laws, Texas' HB2, in a 5-3 vote in 2016. But despite that, over 20 states still have such laws on their books.
A closer look at the county level shows stark disparities in abortion access across the country. There are now 16 states where 95% of counties do not have an abortion clinic.
Sources: Business Insider, National Center for Biotechnology Information
By causing clinics to close down, TRAP laws have the consequence of making patients further and further to get to a clinic, especially in states that require patients to make multiple trips to the clinic and undergo a 24-to-72 hour "waiting periods."
According to a 2017 study from the Guttmacher Institute, one in 5 American women have to travel at least 43 miles to reach their closest abortion provider. Between 2011 and 2014, the distance required to reach a clinic increased in seven states.
Researchers found notable increases in distance to a clinic in Missouri and Texas, states that had introduced TRAP laws.
"Increased travel distance means increased costs for transport, overnight stay, lost wages from time off work, and childcare," wrote Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California.
She continued: "For a woman who is economically disadvantaged, having to travel a long distance could put an abortion out of reach, leading her to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term."
Sources: National Center for Biotechnology Information, Guttmacher Institute, The Lancet Public Health
In the past several years, states have made many attempts to restrict patients from getting abortions after a certain number of weeks — oftentimes before a woman even knows she's pregnant.
In December 2016, the Ohio state legislature passed a "heartbeat bill" that would have banned abortions after six weeks, or when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, even though many women don't know they're pregnant until after that point. Gov. John Kasich vetoed the bill and signed a 20-week ban into law on the same day.
Other states have tried to ban dilation & evacuation (D&E), the method commonly used to perform abortions after 14 weeks. The surgical procedure is usually used in late-term miscarriages and abortions to remove the fetal tissue as safely as possible. They account for less than 0.5% of all abortions.
Prohibiting D&E abortions is effectively a ban on all second-trimester abortions, landing such bans in murky legal territory.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court didn't specify when abortions were legal, deciding at the time to vaguely make it unconstitutional to outlaw them up until the fetus was "viable," since the science hadn't (and still hasn't) determined at the time when that was, medically speaking.
Texas and Alabama's D&E bans have reached federal appeals courts, and the Supreme Court could hear them in the upcoming term.
While the last decade has seen an explosion in abortion restrictions, Americans as a whole haven't become more anti-abortion in the past 20 years.
Currently, 58% of adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 40% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. Those numbers are almost exactly the same as they were back in 1995.
Source: The Pew Research Center
Support for abortion has long been a partisan issue, with support for abortion in all or most cases being highest among liberal Democrats and lowest among conservative Republicans.
But over a quarter of those who identify as conservative Republicans now believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Despite the partisan divides, bipartisan support for Roe v. Wade is at a new high. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released July 23 found that 71% of Americans and 52% of Republicans polled believed that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned.
Source: Pew Research Center, NBC News
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