Tears From Above by Michele L. Montgomery

These state‐level restrictions directly affected abortion seekers (e.g., restricting use of public insurance to pay for abortions, enacting mandatory waiting periods) and specifically targeted abortion providers (e.g., requiring clinics to establish medically unnecessary agreements with hospitals to transfer patients or to comply with medically unnecessary building requirements). Once the US Supreme Court established the right to abortion, as well as how states could regulate the practice, many states began passing laws to restrict the circumstances under which people could obtain abortion care. Specifically, states could regulate abortion before viability (approximately 24 weeks gestation) so long as the regulation in question did not place an “undue burden…in the path of a woman seeking an abortion.” The US Supreme Court ruled to protect the essence of Roe, that is, uphold the individual right to abortion, but to allow a number of state restrictions. Casey asked the US Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of state restrictions on abortion throughout pregnancy, including in the first trimester. This landmark decision prohibited states from banning abortion prior the third trimester of pregnancy after this point, the state could regulate or prohibit abortions except where care was needed “for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.” The Supreme Court of the United States (US) first recognized the constitutional right to abortion in the 1973 case Roe v.

Tears From Above by Michele L. Montgomery