Copy this CollectionOn May 2, 2022, Politico published a leaked draft of a Supreme Court ruling to overturn 1973's Roe V. Wade decision legalizing access to abortion at the federal level. The ruling, drafted by Justice Samuel Alito, says that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start" and “it is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” This marks the first time a Supreme Court draft decision has been seen publicly while a case was still pending. The ruling has caused wide-ranging questions about other court decisions that hinge on an individual's right to privacy, including Obergefell v. Hodges and Griswold v. Connecticut.
If the ruling goes into effect without edits and returns the question of abortion to state legislatures, 26 states have laws indicating that they intend to ban abortions. Nine states have pre-Roe bans that could potentially be enforced if the ruling is overturned, and 13 states have "trigger bans" in place, meaning that abortion will almost immediately be banned if Roe is no longer in effect.
But as efforts to ban or severely restrict access to abortion care have risen precipitously in recent years, so have solutions dedicated to helping pregnant people learn about and engage with all of their options. This collection features grassroots efforts to fund access to abortions for people in limited states, tech experts who have rallied together to disperse information, and informational campaigns about federally approved options like the mail-access abortion pills.
