Nine More States Are Considering Restrictive Anti-Abortion Laws On Par With Alabama’s

Nine states are considering restrictive anti-abortion laws that, if passed, will put those states in the same company as Alabama, Georgia, and others that have passed similar abortion laws recently.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, seven states have recently passed abortion laws that effectively ban all abortions. Ohio and other states, for example, passed laws that prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. But since a fetal heartbeat can be detected at around six weeks following conception, and most women don’t realize they’re pregnant until around or after the sixth week, the law effectively bans most abortions. Arkansas’ abortion laws were written in such a way as to effectively allow only one abortion clinic to remain open in the state. And this week, Alabama passed an abortion law that doesn’t even allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest.

Now, nine other states are considering passing similarly-restrictive abortion laws, The Guardian reports.

Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, and Tennessee have all seen strict anti-abortion bills passed by one legislative chamber. In Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Texas, and West Virginia, restrictive abortion bills have been introduced into state legislatures, but have not yet been voted on.

These abortion bans are a part of a larger right-wing strategy: Have their bills be blocked by the lower courts in order to get them in front of the Supreme Court and overturn Roe v. Wade. https://t.co/RpKjlx3cCZ

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) May 15, 2019

Many of these laws were written, in whole or in part, by the same person — Janet Porter, of the anti-abortion group Faith2Action. As Rewire News reports, Porter got the idea to push hard for restrictive abortion bans after attending the funeral of a colleague.

“I was overwhelmed by the revelation that we don’t have much time on planet Earth. I thought, ‘We’ve got to end [abortion], and we need to end it now.'”

Another thing these abortion laws have in common? The legislatures that passed them want them to be challenged in court.

Donald Trump’s two Supreme Court appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, have resulted in something of a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and abortion opponents are hoping that one or more of these laws will wind up before these justices. Should these laws be upheld, by the Supreme Court, the result could effectively overturn — or at least weaken — Roe v. Wade.

In fact, so invested are some state legislatures in Roe v. Wade eventually being overturned that several have passed so-called “trigger laws” — that is, laws that will come into effect once Roe v. Wade is overturned — banning all abortions in those states. At least two other states have “trigger laws” that were passed before the Trump administration. Other states already have pre-Roe laws on the books, unenforceable since Roe, that they haven’t gotten around to expunging. These laws will come into effect once again, should Roe v. Wade be overturned.