A full 23 state attorney generals have banded together for a renewed commitment to fight for abortion rights following the recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The court’s decision means state officials can now regulate abortion according to their personal ambitions.
The officials involved in the multi-state commitment indicated their fight would not end with the borders of their states. “Abortion care is health care. Period,” a joint statement from the attorney generals says. “We stand together, as our states’ chief law officers, to proudly say that we will not back down in the fight to protect the rights of pregnant people in our states and across the country. While the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision reverses nearly half a century of legal precedent and undermines the rights of people across the United States, we’re joining together to reaffirm our commitment to supporting and expanding access to abortion care nationwide.”
The group also reiterated that they’d be standing by protecting abortion rights for residents of their respective states. Further upholding abortion access in these individual states could help at least some people in states where access to abortion is restricted. So far, there’s no apparent measure in place to penalize residents of states where abortion is restricted for obtaining an abortion elsewhere — but such is a possibility. However, the Biden administration and officials in states such as California and Massachusetts have established they’ll be pushing back against any such effort to launch proceedings across state lines over someone receiving reproductive healthcare. Thus, states where abortion is allowed remain a partial “safe haven,” as a press release from the office of California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom put it.
Traveling to another state obviously wouldn’t be feasible for anyone who might be in a state where abortion is restricted. “For those unable to make the journey, laws banning abortion in their home states will lead to poorer health outcomes and reduced socioeconomic opportunities,” the attorney generals’ statement says. “Those harms will fall disproportionately on people of color and people with fewer resources, further perpetuating our nation’s historical inequities.”
“If you seek access to abortion and reproductive health care, we’re committed to using the full force of the law to support you,” the officials added. “You have our word. We will continue to use all legal tools at our disposal to fight for your rights and stand up for our laws. We will support our partners and service providers. We will take on those who seek to control your bodies and leverage our collective resources — thousands of lawyers and dedicated public servants across our states. Together, we will persist.”
The locales involved in this pro-abortion rights coalition include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. In the years before the Supreme Court eliminated Roe, more than a dozen states passed so-called trigger bans that would broadly block abortions in the event that Roe was overturned. Some measures along these lines required certain procedural steps before becoming active, but anti-abortion state officials swiftly began the required processes. In Missouri, it was mere “minutes” after the court released its decision overturning Roe that the state attorney general took a required procedural move to activate a state ban, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Featured image: Lorie Shaull, available under a Creative Commons license
