Talk:Abortion law in the United States by state

Unclear reference to 14th Amendment

(Apologies if this is the wrong way to bring up an issue).

Maybe this comes up a lot in the debates in the US, so Americans understand the reference, but the wiki article just quotes the 14th, implies its somehow relevant, doesn't say why, and doesn't mention it again:

"""The key deliberated article of the US Constitution is the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that:

   All persons born or naturalized in the United States [etc.]"""

Given that abortion relates to the unborn, and 14th relates to "born", its not at all clear how it relates to abortion, or perhaps the 14th relates to the rights of the mother? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7D6D:9200:8C30:742A:52FB:F15D (talk) 15:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Extraneous asterisk - trigger laws with unusual clauses

In the "Bans of Abortion" table in the row for South Dakota, there is an asterisk next to the value "No" in the column "Trigger Law on any abortion".

There is no other asterisk in the article. Perhaps the original editor was referring to this point that there is something unusual about South Dakota's trigger law:

South Dakota has a unique "trigger" law saying abortion will be banned there, except to save the pregnant woman's life, effective "on the date that the states are recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court to have the authority to prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy."

Mississippi also has a timing associated with its trigger law:

Mississippi statute takes effect 10 days after the state’s attorney general determines in writing that the Supreme Court has overturned the ruling.

Is there anything unusual or notable about the other states' trigger laws?

Here is a reference where I saw this information. Here is an older document referring to another page which is 404.

Additional trigger law info.

I will delete the asterisk for now and when I have good references I am sure of, I will update the table again.

Neutral Language and Graphics

The article can better work to avoid errors in language common to the press and the community-at-large to maintain neutral language.

For example - if a state allows elective abortion for 24 weeks, we refer to a 24 week ban and the word "ban" draws the focus. Of course this is nonsense - it is either an "after 24-weeks ban" or it is a "24 week allowance". Common vernacular removes neutrality.

Along with some of the prior comments on graphics, timing, and current states, the initial graph breaches neutrality again.

The topic is "Abortion Law in the United States" not "Elective Abortion Law in the United States". Thus, having an "elective abortion" graph as the initial graph in the article makes it seem that abortion is more restrictive than it actually is. While the current graphic is important, the initial graph should reflect only "abortion" - the topic of the article - not "elective abortion.kbachler (talk) 09:04, 17 June 2023 (UTC)"

Agreed.

Especially considering "elective" in this context simply refers to scheduled (i.e. non-emergency) medical procedures.

Beyond breaching neutrality, the initial map does not accurately reflect the legal status of abortion in some states.

A useful comparison can be made to the "Legality of Cannabis by U.S. Jurisdiction" article and its map. Consider cannabis' state law legality in Illinois (blue - legal recreational) vs Kentucky (green - legal for medical use) vs Indiana (grey - illegal). That map would be inaccurate without the 'green - medical use' category so that Kentucky was instead 'grey - illegal' simply because its legality is restricted to medical reasons.

This article's map for abortion laws is not accurate for exactly this reason. For example, Indiana is shaded 'black - illegal' even though abortions for medical reasons are legal in Indiana (with facility-specific exceptions).

Not only does the current map make some states' regulations seem more restrictive than they are, it does so even where access has actually been expanded in certain states.

rticle Pimprncess (talk) 19:24, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Purple outline for Montana?

Why does Montana have a purple outline on the map, indicating that there's a restriction after 18 weeks that's blocked in court? There's nothing about such a law either on this page or on the Abortion in Montana page. --04:29, 27 July 2023 (UTC) Jfruh (talk) 04:29, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I have now removed this outline from map, since I can't figure out what exactly it refers to. Jfruh (talk) 22:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

That purple outline was a 20 week ban, not an 18 week ban. The map legend removed the 20 week color code, so some were mistaking it for the 18 week color. JesusIsLord444 (talk) 17:35, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

It was a 20 week ban outline, not an 18 week one. JesusIsLord444 (talk) 17:36, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference to the 20-week ban? Again, I wasn't able to find anything on that. Is litigation on it still active? In general (and this applies to the Iowa case below too) I think once a state law has completed its appeals process through the state court system, we should remove the outline, since it's no longer an active dispute. --Jfruh (talk) 17:49, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

https://apnews.com/article/health-business-government-and-politics-montana-abortion-901c2d7fdd0d5427b094bfde3a660032

It was passed in 2021 and is currently being litigated in court. JesusIsLord444 (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

It turns out there was actually a 15-week ban signed this year (and again blocked in court). I'll update. --Jfruh (talk) 23:57, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Now updated. Again, you might have to clear cache to see the updated map. Jfruh (talk) 00:13, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Indiana Abortion Ban

While the conception ban in Indiana has been blocked, no abortion providers are currently open for abortion services in the state. The page should be edited to reflect the new changes by making the state grey like Wisconsin. Last Opp (talk) 01:54, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Can you provide any links with info on this? I'm sure you're right -- Indiana's Planned Parenthood site says they're not offering abortion services, for instance -- but I can't find any news stories or anything saying definitively that no clinics are performing abortions. --Jfruh (talk) 22:22, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Indiana’s ban went into effect today, someone should update it. JesusIsLord444 (talk) 17:36, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Updated the text and the map. You may need to clear cache to see the updated map. Jfruh (talk) 17:45, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

No non-hospital clinics are providing abortion services.

Providers performing abortions in hospitals are exempt under the new law, and marketplace health insurers are now mandated to expand coverage to include those abortions. Pimprncess (talk) 16:49, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Recent tweaks

Hey all! I just did a fairly extensive set of tweaks to the state-by-state section. I didn't really change much content, but my goals were to:

• Rewrite the intro to this section to reflect the post-Dobbs landscape and explain the technical meaning of the "weeks" terminology we use throughout the page.
• Begin each state's section with a succinct one- or two-sentence description of the most important information about current legal status in that state:
  • Whether it's generally legal or illegal
  • If generally legal, up to how many weeks
  • If generally illegal, what exceptions if any are allowed
  • Whether there are more restrictive regulations currently blocked by litigation
• Standardize some of the terminology we use
• Update some material that is obviously out-of-date; prune some material that is no longer relevant, like legislative initiatives that haven't panned out

The whole section could definitely use some more updates or pruning -- I only added stuff that I happened to know about off the top of my head. For the most part I just rearranged the content that was already there. May add or delete more material later. I also think the stuff on DC and the territories should probably just be integrated into the larger state list, since in this area territorial/DC legislation functionally has the same impacts as in the states.--Jfruh (talk) 21:52, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Did you remove the Iowa border? Iowa has a heartbeat bill currently blocked until their Supreme Court decides it. Not sure why the border was removed. JesusIsLord444 (talk) 17:43, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

See the reference in the article. The Iowa Supreme Court deadlocked on the issue, letting the lower court ruling that blocked the law stand. This effectively ends the legal process for this piece of legislation. If the legislature passes a new law, which it well may, we can update, but that one is finished. --Jfruh (talk) 17:44, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

The legislature did pass a new law in Iowa that’s essentially identical. That’s why I brought it up. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2023/07/17/iowa-fetal-heartbeat-abortion-law-court-ruling-temporary-injunction-kim-reynolds-pregnancy/70420027007/ JesusIsLord444 (talk) 19:19, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Ah got it thank you. I'll update this and Montana today when I get a moment (or feel free to do it yourself if you have the time for it). Jfruh (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

When to put an outline around a state on the map

I mentioned this in a couple replies above to @JesusIsLord444 but I wanted to give the topic its own section so people could chime in. Basically, I was trying to figure out how we should approach the colored outlines around states representing restrictions currently being challenged in court, as at this point all of these challenges are playing out in state courts. My thought was that once the legal process around a proposed restriction has played out in state court to its conclusion, we would take the outline off, because the law at that point has either been implemented or is permanently voided. My understanding is that this dynamic is a little different from the pre-Roe situation where state laws at variance with Roe were still "on the books" and came into play once Dobbs went into effect. Obviously we need to be on the lookout for new legislation being passed (as was the case in, e.g., South Carolina) but in general, I think that if a state passes a restriction that is subsequently exhausts its appeals throughout the state's court system, that isn't enough to keep the outline on the map. --Jfruh (talk) 19:10, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

TN passed law with limited exceptions

The article needs to be updated for this 50.83.52.10 (talk) 03:06, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out -- I updated the section. Jfruh (talk) 06:02, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Map is locked on commons; can someone help?

The map for this article ([1]) has been locked over on Wikimedia -- not sure why. Can someone unlock or update? Wisconsin and Montana both need updates. Jfruh (talk) 17:53, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Changing the map

Ohio just passed Issue 1 today—should we update the map to have a 24 week LMP instead of the red border for an injunction on the heartbeat bill? Dancingtudorqueen (talk) 05:37, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I puut in a request to update the map on Wikimedia commons. Would be great to get that file unlocked. Technically the new las doesn't go into effect until next month but with the six-week law enjoined it seems silly to wait to update the map. --Jfruh (talk) 09:11, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Ohio

Shouldn't Ohio be the Viability colour instead of the 22 week colour? TRJ2008 (talk) 19:21, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

No, because the 22 week ban hasn’t been overturned in court. It’s still the law there. It’s very possible that law won’t be overturned either, depending on how the courts decide to act JesusIsLord444 (talk) 04:30, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Washington

Quote: "Abortion is explicitly legal in Washington up to the point of fetal viability, although there is no law prohibiting it afterwards."

I'm not sure what exactly does that mean... ? What does Washington state law say when it comes to abortion later in pregnancy? 41.66.99.246 (talk) 11:42, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

It means abortion is legal, because what's not illegal is legal.

But according to our state article that's not true. There are two codes, RCW 9.02.110, which allows abortion "prior to viability", and RCW 9.02.120, which makes any other abortion a Class C felony. — kwami (talk) 07:30, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Adding exceptions to elective map

@Kwamikagami Can you add stripes to the map to the illegal states based on the exceptions? The map can be more informative if added. Similar to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abortion_Laws-Irregular.svg. 207.96.32.81 (talk) 17:42, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

since all banning states have exceptions, i don't know what the point would be, and it would make the map more difficult to read. to be informative, it would need to have half a dozen or so different kinds of stripes - a dozen colors with half a dozen colors or shapes of stripes, how would you be able to tell which stripe was which?

we could add a pie chart to each state, with different sections for different exceptions, and different colors for each sector. but many states are too small for that, so they'd need to be off the coast with arrows pointing to the state. I think that would have to be a new map. — kwami (talk) 19:18, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Ohio and "how law works"

Rather than continuing to do a slow-mo edit war with @JesusIsLord444, I thought I would open this up to discussion here and others can chime in on whether one or both of us is wrong.

My understanding has always been that the way constitutional provisions (and court interpretations of those provisions) and statute law in the U.S. interact is that the constitutional provisions are generally held to be supreme. Laws that violate those constitutional provisions may remain on the books, but that doesn't mean that they are active or binding. The classic example is, of course, abortion law in the wake of Roe: in many states, even though there were abortion restrictions in the law code, those laws were overridden by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the U.S. constitution. It was not necessary to challenge every single one of those laws in court in order for them to be considered repealed: prosecutors stopped attempting to enforce them once the ruling came down. Arizona, for instance, still had that 1864 law banning almost all abortions on its books, but nobody pre-Dobbs would've said "Oh, actually, abortion is illegal in Arizona because this specific law hasn't had a legal challenge against it sustained yet."

In Ohio's case, I'm not sure what it would even mean for the 22-week limit to still be in effect until it's challenged. Are there prosecutors at the state or local level who have stated their intention to file charges against doctors or patients who have or perform abortions at 23 or 24 weeks? If so, that should be spelled out and clarified in the article, along with their reasoning for why they think those charges are likely to succeed. If not, than we have a very typical case of a statute law overridden by a constitutional provision, and prosecutors understanding that and therefore not filing charges because they know those charges would be thrown out on constitutional grounds, and it makes no sense to say the 22-week ban is still in effect.

If what you're saying is that Ohio law and precedent considers 22 weeks to be the same thing as viability, and therefore the amendment as passed does not overturn a 22-week ban, that's an entirely different thing. That would also require some citations.

Anyone else is welcome to chime in if I'm misunderstanding the issue here. --Jfruh (talk) 20:43, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

What I am talking about is this opinion the Ohio Supreme Court released (viewable on this page: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2023/08/11/ohio-supreme-court-rejects-legal-challenge-to-abortion-rights-issue/70567955007/ )when challengers tried to keep the amendment off the ballot because the amendment didn’t specify what laws it would repeal. The court essentially said that this argument was faulty because amendments by themselves don’t repeal laws. In the case of the dormant pre-Roe laws, there were many that were struck down directly by courts after Roe, and many other states avoided direct court challenges by making new legislation to override the pre-Roe laws (and not enforce the old laws unless Roe was overturned). However, should the state have tried to enforce the laws, the courts would have stepped in and blocked them.

In the case of Ohio, the state is still actively enforcing the 22 week law, just like it is currently enforcing some of the other laws being challenged (such as the waiting period laws). Until those laws are struck down, they are presumed to be in place. The other thing about the 22 week law is that those types of laws were actually in place in a few states over the last 10 years before Roe was overturned, starting with Nebraska in 2010. These laws were enforced in many red states after that due to the fact that some fetuses are viable at 22 weeks, which means whether or not the law would be blocked is not a straightforward answer. If those laws could be in force before Roe was overturned, it makes sense that it could still be enforced in Ohio after their amendment, which has similar provisions to Roe and Casey.

Ultimately, because this law is in a grey area and because the state is still trying to enforce the 22 week law, the law is still presumed to be in effect unless a court strikes it down. JesusIsLord444 (talk) 00:45, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I think you are to a certain extent misinterpreting the judge's comment here. He's saying that a constitutional amendment does not need to spell out what laws it's repealing, and that statute laws need to conform to the constitution and any that do not can be challenged in court. This is not the same thing as saying that all laws that potentially conflict with a new constitutional amendment remain in place and must be overturned in court one by one in order to be considered repealed. Prosecutors, as a rule, are not in the business of bringing cases that they know they cannot win; if the Ohio 6-week ban were still in place when the amendment was approved, for instance, I think we can all agree that prosecutors would've stopped bringing cases on the basis of that law immediately, and nobody here would be claiming that it was "still in place" even if it was technically on the books.

If Ohio prosecutors are claiming that the current 22-week law does not violate the amendment and this dispute is making its way through the state courts, that's a very different question. I apologize if I've been grumpy about this but in all our reverts you were giving the impression that you thought the whole amendment somehow "didn't count" until it was confirmed by a court ruling. At any rate, please supply some citations on this, because it would be an important addition to the section of the article, and I think we should spell out the contours of the dispute. If nothing else, I do think we should say "viability" in the lead of the section because that's what the constitutional law says. If I'm understanding you correctly, the dispute is not 22 weeks vs. viability, but rather whether viability means 22 or 24 weeks (or some other time period).

In general, I do think we should be clearer about legal language throughout this article. There are some states that have laws based on time since last menstrual period, and others that use terms like "viability" that could be unclear, and we should spell out which states have which and what disputes might arise from any ambiguity. We also sometimes use "6 weeks" as a shorthand for states with so-called "heartbeat laws", but that's not strictly correct -- those laws are specifically about the ability to detect cardiac cell activity, which usually happens around 6 weeks from LMP but not always. Jfruh (talk) 19:49, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/10-things-to-know-about-abortion-access-since-the-dobbs-decision/#:~:text=While%20all%2020%20states%20with,no%20fatal%20fetal%20anomaly%20exceptions.

This is one link that shows the state abortion laws, and it still shows Ohio’s 22 week law as in effect. I agree the amendment is in effect, but what I was saying is that technically a law has to be blocked by the court before the law itself is invalid. The 22 week law hasn’t been challenged, but I would imagine the state would make the case that the 22 week law is constitutional because fetuses can be viable at that stage. It’s one of those edge cases that could go either way. Again, though, until a court blocks it, it’s still technically law.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/03/18/ohio-voters-abortion-2024/73015168007/

Here’s another source that talks about how doctors are still following the 22 week law. JesusIsLord444 (talk) 14:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)