One year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned abortion precedent Roe v. Wade on June 24, 15 states have banned most abortions or have limited them to 6-weeks of gestation, a time when many pregnancies still go undetected. Four more states have restricted abortions to 12 to 15 weeks, which is when a large majority of abortions occur. While five states are still in legal limbo, 27 continue to allow abortions up to the fetal viability limit formerly defined by Roe, at around 23 to 25 weeks. Most recently, a 6-week ban in Iowa failed in front of the state's Supreme Court and the tightening of bans is still expected in Arizona and Florida, among others.
Most of the 27 states guarantee these rights through state laws or state Supreme Court decisions. State constitutional amendments or referendums on abortions, which are harder to overturn, are actually quite rare in the U.S., as our graphic shows.
States which have not banned or restricted abortions despite not protecting them in any way are Democrat-led New Mexico, Republican-led New Hampshire as well as Virginia and Pennsylvania, which have split governments.
