why abortion should not be legalized essay

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Pro and Con: Abortion

Washington DC.,USA, April 26, 1989. Supporters for and against legal abortion face off during a protest outside the United States Supreme Court Building during Webster V Health Services

To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, and discussion questions about whether abortion should be legal, go to ProCon.org .

The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

A June 2, 2022 Gallup poll , 55% of Americans identified as “pro-choice,” the highest percentage since 1995. 39% identified as “pro-life,” and 5% were neither or unsure. For the first time in the history of the poll question (since 2001), 52% of Americans believe abortion is morally acceptable. 38% believed the procedure to be morally wrong, and 10% answered that it depended on the situation or they were unsure.

Surgical abortion (aka suction curettage or vacuum curettage) is the most common type of abortion procedure. It involves using a suction device to remove the contents of a pregnant woman’s uterus. Surgical abortion performed later in pregnancy (after 12-16 weeks) is called D&E (dilation and evacuation). The second most common abortion procedure, a medical abortion (aka an “abortion pill”), involves taking medications, usually mifepristone and misoprostol (aka RU-486), within the first seven to nine weeks of pregnancy to induce an abortion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 67% of abortions performed in 2014 were performed at or less than eight weeks’ gestation, and 91.5% were performed at or less than 13 weeks’ gestation. 77.3% were performed by surgical procedure, while 22.6% were medical abortions. An abortion can cost from $500 to over $1,000 depending on where it is performed and how long into the pregnancy it is.

Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.
Abortion bans endangers healthcare for those not seeking abortions.
Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.
Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.
Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.
Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

This article was published on June 24, 2022, at Britannica’s ProCon.org , a nonpartisan issue-information source.

There Are More Than Two Sides to the Abortion Debate

Readers share their perspectives.

Police use metal barricades to keep protesters, demonstrators and activists apart in front of the U.S. Supreme Court

Earlier this week I curated some nuanced commentary on abortion and solicited your thoughts on the same subject. What follows includes perspectives from several different sides of the debate. I hope each one informs your thinking, even if only about how some other people think.

We begin with a personal reflection.

Cheryl was 16 when New York State passed a statute legalizing abortion and 19 when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. At the time she was opposed to the change, because “it just felt wrong.” Less than a year later, her mother got pregnant and announced she was getting an abortion.

She recalled:

My parents were still married to each other, and we were financially stable. Nonetheless, my mother’s announcement immediately made me a supporter of the legal right to abortion. My mother never loved me. My father was physically abusive and both parents were emotionally and psychologically abusive on a virtually daily basis. My home life was hellish. When my mother told me about the intended abortion, my first thought was, “Thank God that they won’t be given another life to destroy.” I don’t deny that there are reasons to oppose abortion. As a feminist and a lawyer, I can now articulate several reasons for my support of legal abortion: a woman’s right to privacy and autonomy and to the equal protection of the laws are near the top of the list. (I agree with Ruth Bader Ginsburg that equal protection is a better legal rationale for the right to abortion than privacy.) But my emotional reaction from 1971 still resonates with me. Most people who comment on the issue, on both sides, do not understand what it is to go through childhood unloved. It is horrific beyond my powers of description. To me, there is nothing more immoral than forcing that kind of life on any child. Anti-abortion activists often like to ask supporters of abortion rights: “Well, what if your mother had decided to abort you?” All I can say is that I have spent a great portion of my life wishing that my mother had done exactly that.

Steven had related thoughts:

I have respect for the idea that there should be some restrictions on abortion. But the most fundamental, and I believe flawed, unstated assumptions of the anti-choice are that A) they are acting on behalf of the fetus, and more importantly B) they know what the fetus would want. I would rather not have been born than to have been born to a mother who did not want me. All children should be wanted children—for the sake of all concerned. You can say that different fetuses would “want” different things—though it’s hard to say a clump of cells “wants” anything. How would we know? The argument lands, as it does generally, with the question of who should be making that decision. Who best speaks in the fetus’s interests? Who is better positioned morally or practically than the expectant mother?

Geoff self-describes as “pro-life” and guilty of some hypocrisy. He writes:

I’m pro-life because I have a hard time with the dehumanization that comes with the extremes of abortion on demand … Should it be okay to get an abortion when you find your child has Down syndrome? What of another abnormality? Or just that you didn’t want a girl? Any argument that these are legitimate reasons is disturbing. But so many of the pro-life just don’t seem to care about life unless it’s a fetus they can force a woman to carry. The hypocrisy is real. While you can argue that someone on death row made a choice that got them to that point, whereas a fetus had no say, I find it still hard to swallow that you can claim one life must be protected and the other must be taken. Life should be life. At least in the Catholic Church this is more consistent. I myself am guilty of a degree of hypocrisy. My wife and I used IVF to have our twins. There were other embryos created and not inserted. They were eventually destroyed. So did I support killing a life? Maybe? I didn’t want to donate them for someone else to give birth to—it felt wrong to think my twins may have brothers or sisters in the world they would never know about. Yet does that mean I was more willing to kill my embryos than to have them adopted? Sure seems like it. So I made a morality deal with myself and moved the goal post—the embryos were not yet in a womb and were so early in development that they couldn’t be considered fully human life. They were still potential life.

Colleen, a mother of three, describes why she ended her fourth pregnancy:

I was young when I first engaged this debate. Raised Catholic, anti-choice, and so committed to my position that I broke my parents’ hearts by giving birth during my junior year of college. At that time, my sense of my own rights in the matter was almost irrelevant. I was enslaved by my body. One husband and two babies later I heard a remarkable Jesuit theologian (I wish I could remember his name) speak on the matter and he, a Catholic priest, framed it most directly. We prioritize one life over another all the time. Most obviously, we justify the taking of life in war with all kinds of arguments that often turn out to be untrue. We also do so as we decide who merits access to health care or income support or other life-sustaining things. So the question of abortion then boils down to: Who gets to decide? Who gets to decide that the life of a human in gestation is actually more valuable than the life of the woman who serves as host—or vice versa? Who gets to decide when the load a woman is being asked to carry is more than she can bear? The state? Looking back over history, he argued that he certainly had more faith in the person most involved to make the best decision than in any formalized structure—church or state—created by men. Every form of birth control available failed me at one point or another, so when yet a 4th pregnancy threatened to interrupt the education I had finally been able to resume, I said “Enough.” And as I cried and struggled to come to that position, the question that haunted me was “Doesn’t MY life count?” And I decided it did.

Florence articulates what it would take to make her anti-abortion:

What people seem to miss is that depriving a woman of bodily autonomy is slavery. A person who does not control his/her own body is—what? A slave. At its simplest, this is the issue. I will be anti-abortion when men and women are equal in all facets of life—wages, chores, child-rearing responsibilities, registering for the draft, to name a few obvious ones. When there is birth control that is effective, where women do not bear most of the responsibility. We need to raise boys who are respectful to girls, who do not think that they are entitled to coerce a girl into having sex that she doesn’t really want or is unprepared for. We need for sex education to be provided in schools so young couples know what they are getting into when they have sex. Especially the repercussions of pregnancy. We need to raise girls who are confident and secure, who don’t believe they need a male to “complete” them. Who have enough agency to say “no” and to know why. We have to make abortion unnecessary … We have so far to go. If abortion is ruled illegal, or otherwise curtailed, we will never know if the solutions to women’s second-class status will work. We will be set back to the 50s or worse. I don’t want to go back. Women have fought from the beginning of time to own their bodies and their lives. To deprive us of all of the amazing strides forward will affect all future generations.

Similarly, Ben agrees that in our current environment, abortion is often the only way women can retain equal citizenship and participation in society, but also agrees with pro-lifers who critique the status quo, writing that he doesn’t want a world where a daughter’s equality depends on her right “to perform an act of violence on their potential descendents.” Here’s how he resolves his conflictedness:

Conservatives arguing for a more family-centered society, in which abortion is unnecessary to protect the equal rights of women, are like liberals who argue for defunding the police and relying on addiction, counselling, and other services, in that they argue for removing what offends them without clear, credible plans to replace the functions it serves. I sincerely hope we can move towards a world in which armed police are less necessary. But before we can remove the guardrails of the police, we need to make the rest of the changes so that the world works without them. Once liberal cities that have shown interest in defunding the police can prove that they can fund alternatives, and that those alternatives work, then I will throw my support behind defunding the police. Similarly, once conservative politicians demonstrate a credible commitment to an alternative vision of society in which women are supported, families are not taken for granted, and careers and short-term productivity are not the golden calves they are today, I will be willing to support further restrictions on abortion. But until I trust that they are interested in solving the underlying problem (not merely eliminating an aspect they find offensive), I will defend abortion, as terrible as it is, within reasonable legal limits.

Two readers objected to foregrounding gender equality. One emailed anonymously, writing in part:

A fetus either is or isn’t a person. The reason I’m pro-life is that I’ve never heard a coherent defense of the proposition that a fetus is not a person, and I’m not sure one can be made. I’ve read plenty of progressive commentary, and when it bothers to make an argument for abortion “rights” at all, it talks about “the importance of women’s healthcare” or something as if that were the issue.

Christopher expanded on that last argument:

Of the many competing ethical concerns, the one that trumps them all is the status of the fetus. It is the only organism that gets destroyed by the procedure. Whether that is permissible trumps all other concerns. Otherwise important ethical claims related to a woman’s bodily autonomy, less relevant social disparities caused by the differences in men’s and women’s reproductive functions, and even less relevant differences in partisan commitments to welfare that would make abortion less appealing––all of that is secondary. The relentless strategy by the pro-choice to sidestep this question and pretend that a woman’s right to bodily autonomy is the primary ethical concern is, to me, somewhere between shibboleth and mass delusion. We should spend more time, even if it’s unproductive, arguing about the status of the fetus, because that is the question, and we should spend less time indulging this assault-on-women’s-rights narrative pushed by the Left.

Jean is critical of the pro-life movement:

Long-acting reversible contraceptives, robust, science-based sex education for teens, and a stronger social safety net would all go a remarkable way toward decreasing the number of abortions sought. Yet all the emphasis seems to be on simply making abortion illegal. For many, overturning Roe v. Wade is not about reducing abortions so much as signalling that abortion is wrong. If so-called pro-lifers were as concerned about abortion as they seem to be, they would spend more time, effort, and money supporting efforts to reduce the need for abortion—not simply trying to make it illegal without addressing why women seek it out. Imagine, in other words, a world where women hardly needed to rely on abortion for their well-being and ability to thrive. Imagine a world where almost any woman who got pregnant had planned to do so, or was capable of caring for that child. What is the anti-abortion movement doing to promote that world?

Destiny has one relevant answer. She writes:

I run a pro-life feminist group and we often say that our goal is not to make abortion illegal, but rather unnecessary and unthinkable by supporting women and humanizing the unborn child so well.

Robert suggests a different focus:

Any well-reasoned discussion of abortion policy must include contraception because abortion is about unwanted children brought on by poorly reasoned choices about sex. Such choices will always be more emotional than rational. Leaving out contraception makes it an unrealistic, airy discussion of moral philosophy. In particular, we need to consider government-funded programs of long-acting reversible contraception which enable reasoned choices outside the emotional circumstances of having sexual intercourse.

Last but not least, if anyone can unite the pro-life and pro-choice movements, it’s Errol, whose thoughts would rankle majorities in both factions as well as a majority of Americans. He writes:

The decision to keep the child should not be left up solely to the woman. Yes, it is her body that the child grows in, however once that child is birthed it is now two people’s responsibility. That’s entirely unfair to the father when he desired the abortion but the mother couldn’t find it in her heart to do it. If a woman wants to abort and the man wants to keep it, she should abort. However I feel the same way if a man wants to abort. The next 18+ years of your life are on the line. I view that as a trade-off that warrants the male’s input. Abortion is a conversation that needs to be had by two people, because those two will be directly tied to the result for a majority of their life. No one else should be involved with that decision, but it should not be solely hers, either.

Thanks to all who contributed answers to this week’s question, whether or not they were among the ones published. What subjects would you like to see fellow readers address in future installments? Email [email protected].

By submitting an email, you’ve agreed to let us use it—in part or in full—in this newsletter and on our website. Published feedback includes a writer’s full name, city, and state, unless otherwise requested in your initial note.

About the Author

The negative health implications of restricting abortion access

December 13, 2021— Ana Langer is professor of the practice of public health and coordinator of the Women and Health Initiative at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Q: Roe v. Wade may soon be overturned by the Supreme Court, while at the same time other countries are loosening restrictions around abortion rights. What are your thoughts on the current climate around this issue?

A: The trend over the past several decades is clear: Safe and legal abortion has become more widely accessible to women globally, with nearly 50 countries including Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, Thailand, and Ireland liberalizing their abortion laws. During the same period, however, a few countries have made abortion more restricted or totally illegal, including El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland.

In the U.S., legal frameworks are increasingly limiting access to abortion. Even while Roe is in place, many people are currently unable to receive abortion care.

If the Supreme Court were to limit or overturn Roe, abortion would remain legal in 21 states and could immediately be prohibited in 24 states and three territories. Millions of people would be forced to travel to receive legal abortion care, something that would be impossible for many due to a range of financial and logistical reasons.

This situation does not surprise me because of the deep polarization that characterizes public views on abortion, and the growing power and relentless efforts of anti-choice groups. Furthermore, it does not surprise me because of the important gender gap that exists in this country, which is to a great extent due to the lack of strong and consistent policies and legal frameworks to support women in their efforts to better integrate their reproductive and professional roles and responsibilities.

The U.S. legalized abortion nearly 50 years ago, at a time when it was legally restricted in many countries around the world, setting an important international precedent and example. It disappoints me to see that while important progress has been made towards equality in other culturally polarized areas such as same-sex marriage, women’s right to terminate an unwanted or mistimed pregnancy is now severely threatened.

Q: How do laws that restrict abortion access impact women’s health?

A: Restricting women’s access to safe and legal abortion services has important negative health implications. We’ve seen that these laws do not result in fewer abortions. Instead, they compel women to risk their lives and health by seeking out unsafe abortion care.

According to the World Health Organization, 23,000 women die from unsafe abortions each year and tens of thousands more experience significant health complications globally. A recent study estimated that banning abortion in the U.S. would lead to a 21% increase in the number of pregnancy-related deaths overall and a 33% increase among Black women, simply because staying pregnant is more dangerous than having an abortion. Increased deaths due to unsafe abortions or attempted abortions would be in addition to these estimates.

If the current trend in the U.S. persists, “back alley” abortions will be the last resource for women with no access to safe and legal services, and the horrific consequences of such abortions will become a major cause of death and severe health complications for some of the most vulnerable women in this country.

The legal status of abortion also defines whether girls will be able to complete their educations and whether women will be able to participate in the workforce, and in public and political life.

Improving social safety net programs for women reduces gender gaps and improves girls’ and women’s health and chances to fulfill their potential, and could help reduce the number of abortions over time. Women who are better educated, have better access to comprehensive reproductive health care , and are employed and fairly remunerated will be better positioned to avoid a mistimed and unwanted pregnancy, hence the need for termination will become less common.

Q: Should abortion be considered a human right?

A: Numerous international and regional human rights treaties and national-level constitutions around the world protect the right to safe and legal abortion as a fundamental human right. Access to safe abortion is included in a constellation of rights, including the rights to life, liberty, privacy, equality and non-discrimination, and freedom from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Human rights bodies have repeatedly condemned restrictive abortion laws as being incompatible with human rights norms.

While a supportive legal framework for abortion care is critical, it is not enough to ensure access for everyone who seeks the service. For universal access to become a reality, policies that cover the cost of abortion care and its integration into the health care system, in addition to societal measures that destigmatize the procedure, are needed.

— Amy Roeder

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Works Cited

Holmund, J., Kauko, J., Matamaki, M. Tuominen, J. Makinen & Rautava, P. “Induced-Abortion Impact on a subsequent pregnancy in first-time mothers.” A registry-based study. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 16(1), 2016, p 325.
Lohr, PA, Fjerstad, M., Desilva, U., Lyus, R. “Abortion”. BMJ. 2017, p 348: f7553. doi: 10.113/bmj: f7553.
Miller, Erica. Mourned Choices and Grievable Lives: The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Influence in Defining the Abortion Experience in Australia Since the 1960s. Gender and History, vol 28, no 2, 2016, pp 501-519. Wiley, doi:10.1111/1468-0424.12220

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Abortion — Abortion Should Not Be Legalized

Abortion Should not Be Legalized

Categories: Abortion

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Published: Jan 29, 2024

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Background information on abortion, ethical perspectives on abortion, medical perspectives on abortion, socio-economic implications of legalizing abortion, alternatives to abortion, counterarguments and rebuttals.

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Why Abortion is Illegal? Comparison of Legal and Illegal Abortion: A Critical Review

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1 KATM Ehsanul Huq, Doctoral Student at Graduate School of Biomedical & Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Japan.
PMID: 29208889

Abortion is the termination of pregnancy that occurs spontaneously or purposely. In the most developed world, abortion is legally allowed for women seeking safe termination of pregnancies. Particularly, when access to legal abortion is restricted, abortion is the resort to unsafe methods. The aim of this review is to necessitate safe abortion and to accentuate the consequences of illegal abortion in case of legal prohibition. We used Pubmed, MedLine and Scopus databases to review previous literatures of safe, unsafe, legal and illegal abortions. Research work and reports from organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank (WB) and United Nations (UN) were included. Snowball sampling was used to obtain relevant journals. Abortion is conventional whether it is safe, unsafe, legal or illegal. The intention of the antiabortion policy was to reduce the number of abortions globally. However, instead of decreasing rates, evidences show significant increase in abortions. When abortion is legal, the preconditions to be ensured are availability, accessibility, affordability and acceptability for the safe abortion facilities. When abortion is illegal, risk reduction strategies are needed to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality. We can reduce abortion related morbidity and mortality, whether it is legal or illegal if we can ensure the appropriate access to health care, including abortion services, education on sexuality, access to contraceptives, post abortion care, and suitable interventions and liberalization of laws. The paper reviewed the Mexico City Policy and the US foreign aid strategies and highlighted the evidence based analysis for policy reform. The liberalized abortion law can save pregnant women from abortion related complications and death.

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Review of David Boonin, Beyond Roe: Why Abortion Should be Legal Even if the Fetus is a Person (Oxford University Press, 2019)

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Published: 14 May 2021
Volume 15 , pages 535–544, ( 2021 )

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Should abortion be legal even if the human fetus is a person? “Person” is intended here in its philosophical sense, to mean a being possessed of equal moral standing and rights as you and me. Most importantly of all, a person is a being with the fundamental right to life. The question about what follows morally and legally when fetal personhood is presumed has occupied a sizeable part of abortion ethics for some time. Far and away the most influential reflection on that question was the philosopher Judith Thomson’s “violinist analogy argument” in defence of abortion rights. Footnote 1 There, Thomson argued that abortion is morally defensible even if it is true that the fetus is a rights-holding person. Her argument rested on a view of pregnancy as supererogatory, and, conversely, of abortion as the mere refusal to be a good Samaritan. Though it might be laudable to do so, no one is morally required to surrender her very body in order to keep another person alive for nine months, Thomson claimed. Ergo, even if fetuses are persons, women are not morally obliged to provide them with life-saving bodily aid by gestating them. They are morally permitted to refuse that bodily aid by means of abortion. They are permitted to choose not to be good Samaritans.

Thomson memorably posed this argument through an analogy in which you are kidnapped by a musical society and hooked up to an unconscious violinist whose kidneys are failing, and who needs to be plugged into your own kidneys for the next nine months in order to survive. After that, he will detach, and you can go your separate ways. As fate would have it, you are the only kidney match. Certainly, Thomson argued, it would be admirable for you to undertake this burden, but surely you do not have to. You are morally permitted to reach around your back and unplug yourself, knowing that the violinist will sadly die, she claimed, confident that the reader will share this judgement. Well, just so with pregnancy and abortion. I think of this as the “good Samaritan view” of abortion rights, since the kernel of the argument is that abortion is no more than the refusal to be a good Samaritan. The violinist analogy is aimed at making the moral permissibility of abortion difficult to refute, including if we presuppose fetal personhood. The violinist is certainly a person, and yet you may unplug. If one is permitted to unplug the violinist, knowing he will die, why is one not permitted to expel a fetus, knowing the same?

In Beyond Roe: Why Abortion Should be Legal Even if the Fetus is a Person (Oxford University Press, 2019), David Boonin presents an engaging restatement of this way of thinking about abortion, citing Thomson as its intellectual progenitor, and defending it against the more prominent objections to stack up in the years since Thomson’s watershed intervention. In concert with Thomson, Boonin’s main proposition is as the title makes plain: that the right to abortion is defensible in moral and, even more assuredly, in legal terms, even if the fetus is a person with the right to life. He writes in the preface:

My main goal in this book is to take the argument that Thomson pioneered in the moral context, adapt it to the legal context, and use it to argue that abortion should be legal even if the fetus is a person. (x)

Like Thomson, Boonin argues that abortion amounts to the refusal to provide an embryo or a fetus with life-sustaining aid that a pregnant person cannot be morally required to provide. Certainly, he claims, no one ought to be forced by law to provide that bodily support. Emulating Thomson’s strategy, Boonin anchors his argument on an extended analogue. Unlike Thomson’s hypothetical violinist, though, Boonin’s is a real life case, which even found its way before a court. The case concerned an American man, Robert McFall, and his cousin, David Shimp. McFall had been diagnosed with aplastic anaemia, a life-threatening condition which threatened to soon take his life if he did not receive a bone marrow transplant. Initial tests indicated that McFall’s cousin, David Shimp, was a potential match. But Shimp did not wish to donate his bone marrow in order to save McFall. In light of the refusal, McFall brought a legal action, effectively asking the court to force Shimp to donate. In McFall v. Shimp , that action was summarily dismissed by the presiding Judge Flaherty. Footnote 2 ‘Flaherty’s basic point was simple:’, writes Boonin, ‘it would be wrong for the state to force Shimp to give McFall the bone marrow he needed. I’ll bet you agree with Judge Flaherty about this.’ (4).

In the first part of the book, Boonin draws out the main lesson of McFall v. Shimp , and seeks to show that if the reader agrees with that principle and the judge’s decision in that case, she must, perforce, agree that abortion should remain legal even if the fetus is a person. The main lesson of the case, Boonin takes it, is that the right to life does not entail the right to the use of another person’s body to stay alive. McFall definitely possessed the right to life. Still, he could not demand the use of Shimp’s bone marrow in order to save his life. And certainly, we should think, the state ought not to force Shimp to make that bodily sacrifice. ‘[B]eing a person doesn’t give you the right to use another person’s bone marrow even if you need to use it.’, Boonin writes (8).

Boonin sets out to establish that the same analysis applies to abortion on the assumption that the fetus is a person. If you believe that Shimp ought not to be forced to donate his bone marrow to McFall, then you should hold that the state ought not to force women to provide life-sustaining bodily aid to fetuses through gestation. But this it would do if it prohibited abortion, it is argued. He traces a number of different abortion scenarios, inviting the reader to presume in each that the fetus, like McFall, really is a person (amusingly, the fetuses are even given names, such as “Al” and “Bob” to help lock that presumption in place). Despite their various features, Boonin claims that all of these abortions are subsumed by the basic principle of McFall v. Shimp .

The second part of the book tackles a cache of objections to this initial argument, which largely proceed by asserting morally relevant disanalogies that may well hold between McFall v. Shimp and the abortion situation. Perhaps a pregnant woman is responsible for the situation that has now arisen, or could be said to have consensually risked pregnancy (both non-issues in McFall v. Shimp ). Perhaps the precise way in which abortion causes fetal death raises distinct moral issues. Does it change things that a woman stands in a relation of biological parenthood to her fetus? And so on.

In the final part, Boonin argues that if you agree with the decision in McFall v. Shimp , you ought to hold not only that abortion prohibitions are illicit, but also that numerous restrictions on abortion access are indefensible as a matter of justice. Among the restrictions he addresses directly are mandatory counselling, waiting periods, and ultrasound requirements, all of which are in operation in some American states.

The importance of the entire ‘good Samaritan’ strain of abortion defence is patently apparent. On a typical reckoning, the philosophical personhood of the fetus is deeply inimical to abortion rights. This is because, while unwanted pregnancy no doubt imposes severe hardships on women, it is hard to make the case that homicide is a proportionate method of avoiding them in almost all cases. In morality and law, homicide is justified only in the direst of circumstances. Considering this, it would appear that everything in the abortion rights battle depends on the correct answer to the personhood question. Needless to say, though, the conditions for philosophical personhood are deeply (maybe even essentially) contested. If the permissibility of abortion can, somehow, be maintained in the face of prenatal personhood, we can spare ourselves grappling with the thorny question about the moral status of the fetus—and, indeed, about what confers personhood universally—on the path to defending abortion rights.

The good Samaritan argument has both moral and legal analogues. While Thomson was primarily concerned with establishing the moral permissibility of abortion, Boonin more emphatically sets out to make the case for the legal right to abort a fetus-person. Footnote 3 On both scores, by grounding his version of the good Samaritan argument on a real life case, Boonin’s account has the relative virtue of being slightly closer to earth than Thomson’s, where we might worry that the sheer bizarreness of the scenario makes it difficult to formulate reliable judgements. McFall v. Shimp actually happened, and Boonin is surely correct to suppose that its decision will be endorsed by most people. Relying on readers’ judgements about that case is hence a solid departure point for further argument.

Admittedly, this advantage is diluted each time the original case is amended to something more outlandish so as to account for a possible morally relevant disanalogy with abortion. I am less sure, for instance, what the correct legal and moral response is where Shimp begins the scenario connected up to a ‘bone marrow transferring machine’ which is slowly extracting his bone marrow and transferring it to McFall, or where McFall turns out to be Shimp’s offspring, than I am about the original case. This “changing-the-case” strategy—a staple of contemporary moral philosophy—is the argumentative method of choice for most of the book, and McFall v. Shimp undergoes multiple emendations to press the main thesis in the face of objections. For example, perhaps we are unsure that McFall v. Shimp applies equally to abortions in which the woman was in some way responsible in becoming pregnant, say, by engaging in consensual sex and forgoing contraceptive use. In that case, we should simply ask ourselves how things ought to stand in an amended case where Shimp is somehow responsible for the situation in which he is now connected up to McFall and already donating his bone marrow, the cessation of which will spell McFall’s death—maybe he went tearing around McFall’s hospital room in full knowledge that he might trip on the slippery floor and wind up stuck on the ‘bone marrow transferring machine’ (24). If we remain convinced that the law ought not to force Shimp to remain hooked up, his negligence notwithstanding, the disanalogy doesn’t bite.

The doubt always lingers, though, that not every morally salient feature of the pregnancy situation can be adequately captured by a McFall v. Shimp Redux. And none, surely, can capture the combined force of everything that seems to matter in this domain. How would it change our moral evaluations of McFall and Shimp’s case if people donating bone marrow to their cousins had been the method of bringing new humans into existence since time immemorial; if our private, social, and working lives were structured against the backdrop of this possibility, and even sat in expectation of it; if the act of donation had come to be considered (rightly or wrongly) as a pivotal aspect of the human experience, but one that also imposed disproportionate social and physical burdens upon the donors, an already disadvantaged class of citizens? It is unlikely that any tweaking of McFall v. Shimp can replicate all the realities which inform our moral response to the abortion problem, and, indeed, against the backdrop of which those moral sensibilities are developed and finessed to begin with. Perhaps the misgivings some have about the methodology which characterises Beyond Roe are not entirely without merit, then.

This critical perspective having been duly noted, Boonin’s constant appeal to intuitions about cases, changing the case in response to objections, and confidently escorting the reader from one conclusion to the next (“if the McFall v. Shimp principle applies to X abortion scenario, then it should also apply to Y abortion scenario”), makes for a readable and compelling discussion, well suited to the aims of the book and its intended wide readership. The arguments are elegantly simple and straightforward; the writing has a crisp, conversational style, and the book moves along at a good pace, with each concise chapter devoted to progressing the argument in one small step, or refuting an objection with little ceremony. Boonin clearly takes pains to make the book suitable for those unfamiliar with abortion ethics literature and the philosophically novice. As he states in the preface, the aim is for the book to be ‘informal and accessible’ (xii), and in this he succeeds, with a minor reservation about some parts in which the appeal to yet more “cases” feels like more of a hindrance than a help. The book does not presume any familiarity with either law or philosophy and is pleasingly free of disciplinary jargon.

Much of the book is in fact a précis of arguments more elaborately made by Boonin in his 2002 book A Defense of Abortion , repackaged and simplified for the general reader. Footnote 4 In the earlier book, Boonin devotes an impressive chapter of over 200 pages to the systematic defence of Thomson’s version of the good Samaritan argument. The chapter contains the most rigorous and robust defence of the view that abortion is morally permissible regardless of fetal personhood of which I am aware (my own copy is dog-eared and underlined throughout). Beyond Roe distils the essence of these arguments, and of the good Samaritan thesis, in a way that will be particularly useful for students or for those encountering philosophical abortion arguments for the first time. But it also has plenty to offer the more inducted, reminding us of the various pulse points in this corner of the discussion, and of where the exchanges will likely bottom out. The flip side of the book’s punchy style is that there is little breathing space to expand arguments and attend to nuances. This can hardly be a complaint in the context, and it is only once or twice that the discussion suffers for it, by my lights. One possible example of where it does is around the discussions of sex-selective and fetal abnormality (or “disability”) abortions—both tricky cases for one or other side of the abortion divide—where no reference is made to some salient moral and legal considerations beyond the so-called fetal-maternal conflict.

The timing of Beyond Roe , at what appears to be a critical juncture for the abortion right in the United States, cannot be a coincidence. After recent personnel shifts on the US Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade , along with its determination against fetal personhood, is seemingly more precarious now than it has been in decades. The landmark decision in Roe v. Wade is familiar to most people as the case in which women’s constitutional right to terminate their pregnancies was first recognised, Footnote 5 Fewer people are aware that Justice Blackmun premised the court’s majority judgment on the denial of the fetus’s personhood under the Constitution. Women’s right to privacy did afford them the qualified right to abortion, it was held, but could not have done if the fetus were a recognised person under the law, and entitled to the constitutional protections that triggered. Had the Constitution recognised prenatal persons, the abortion right would fail, Justice Blackmun reasoned, ‘for the fetus’s right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the amendment’. Footnote 6

In so holding, Roe embraced the orthodox view of abortion ethics set out above: that the right to abortion is incompatible with the personhood of the fetus. As the antithesis to this view, the good Samaritan argument has increased legal and political relevance in any climate where the ascription of legal personhood to the fetus is a real possibility. Boonin articulates a basis for the abortion right that is impervious to a finding of fetal personhood. It is in this sense that his argument goes “beyond Roe”. By pre-empting a legal turn affirming the constitutional personhood of the fetus, and illustrating how the abortion right could be defended consistently with it, the book is a welcome example of what philosophical legal advocacy can look like.

Garnering the reader’s sympathy for the main principle about the limits of positive bodily duties (the ‘lesson’ of McFall v. Shimp ) is always going to be the easier part for the good Samaritan argument. To reiterate, the principle is that the right to life does not entail the right to use another person’s body in order to live. This is because the right to life does not ground a correlative duty on others to keep someone alive by such means, and no one should be forced to undertake burdens they are not morally required to bear. (This is not to deny that there are morally egregious refusals to save: Thomson herself admits that someone who refused to sustain the violinist for merely one hour, when that is all it would take to save him, would be ‘morally indecent’. Footnote 7 )

Few would probably object thus far. The harder sell is always to show that the principle applies to pregnancy and abortion the same way it applies to McFall v. Shimp , and that morally relevant disanalogies do not knock it out of the arena. Boonin documents some of the main objections along these lines and provides a good demonstration of how someone defending the good Samaritan view could defuse them, the persuasiveness of which it is for the reader to evaluate. A cluster of those objections raise the possibility that the positive obligations a woman might owe to her fetus do not match up with McFall v. Shimp . This is the tenor of the responsibility objection (pp. 69–83), which points out that pregnant women can be responsible for the fetus’s situation of need in a way that is not true of Shimp vis-à-vis McFall. And it is trite that greater responsibility grounds greater obligations.

But a more fundamental objection targets the very framing of the abortion issue in terms of whether woman has a positive duty to gestate a fetus. On the good Samaritan view, the ethical question is whether one person’s positive obligations of assistance extend to proffering the use of her body for someone else’s survival, the answer being that, certainly in abortion, they do not. Yet an obvious objection is that abortion is not a positive obligations problem to begin with, but rather a problem about when one is permitted to breach the negative duty not to kill. We may be satisfied that Shimp merely allowed McFall to die when he refused to donate his bone marrow. In that case, the immanent moral issue is only whether Shimp ought to have saved McFall or not. But it seems that when “Alice” aborts “Al”, she (or her doctors) is positively killing Al. If so, the good Samaritan analysis is in some trouble. In both law and morality, the circumstances in which we are permitted to kill outright are far stricter than those in which we are permitted to refuse to save. It doesn’t follow, then, from the fact that Shimp has no duty to rescue McFall that Alice is permitted to kill Al to spare herself similar (or, even, worse) burdens. This is the familiar “killing v letting die” objection to Thomson’s original defence of abortion.

As Boonin notes, it looks as though only some types of abortions, such as those which expel a pre-viable fetus from the uterus without attacking it directly, are readily analysable in terms of refusing to save, on a par with Shimp’s omission (109). Other abortion methods better resemble direct killing which, presuming fetal personhood, would make the issue one of homicide. Homicide may yet be justified, of course, but its road to justification is not easy.

Boonin’s general strategy against the killing v letting die objection, only really glimpsed at here, is to press the implications of special constraints on positive killing where they most rub. For example, most people, Boonin says, will likely think it matters not whether an abortion is carried out by dilation and curettage, a method that directly kills the fetus in the process of extraction, or instead by hysterotomy, where a pre-viable fetus is removed from the uterine environment it needs to survive, given that the result, fetal death, is the same. Added pressure can be applied using another amended version of McFall v. Shimp . Let us change the case again, Boonin suggests, to have it that Shimp is already unhappily hooked up to the bone-marrow transferring machine, only this time it is not enough to free Shimp to simply sever the connection; to free Shimp, a doctor must kill McFall outright, albeit painlessly in his sleep (114). If you think the doctor ought to be able to do this, Boonin argues, then you can have no objection to a mode of abortion that directly kills Al the fetus. More than this, though, you should have no objection to the direct killing of McFall in the amended case:

Since McFall has no right to the life support he’s receiving and would be dead if he weren’t receiving it, you may well think Shimp is entitled to withdraw that support even if doing so involves taking McFall’s life. Since McFall has no right to remain alive at Shimp’s expense after all, doing so would not make McFall any worse off than he has the right to be.’ (115–116)

But that cannot be a full and correct statement of a condition for permissible killing. It is not the case that one is permitted to kill just whenever the killing is done so as to liberate oneself from a burden one would not have been duty-bound to offer, or when the killing will not leave the victim any worse off than she has a right to be, vis-à-vis the killer. Let us assume I have no duty to save you from rough sleeping and death from exposure by handing you over the contents of my bank account. Footnote 8 Does that mean I am permitted to kill you so as to prevent you from commandeering those funds by force? Unlike Boonin, I am less sure we can read directly off a person’s rights to life-saving assistance the extent of her rights against being killed so as to spare someone that that assistance.

Anyone unimpressed by the idea of an intrinsic moral difference between killing and letting die will no doubt deny that Alice cannot abort Al by dilation and curettage if she can abort by hysterotomy. This may seem all the more the case when the outcome for the fetus is the same either way but where the latter “letting die” method is more physically costly to Alice. Footnote 9 Yet those who embrace strict deontological constraints on positive killing know that it will sometimes prove costly on other metrics of goodness. This line of reply only seems to beg the question against the killing/letting die distinction wholesale. We know that the difference is of moral consequence: my moral duty to save people from starvation through charitable donations is nothing like my moral duty not to poison those same people. If the distinction matters morally and intrinsically, why does it not matter here? That is the challenge.

If the morality and legality of abortion cannot, ultimately, fall to be treated as a positive obligations problem, we may find ourselves directed back to the more fundamental matter of fetal moral status. This brings me around, finally, to what motivates the good Samaritan thesis and the entire strain of personhood-bypassing abortion argument. ‘The traditional approach of arguing about fetal personhood doesn’t appear to be working too well’, Boonin writes toward the beginning of the book (6). By what standards, though? One could well say the same thing about the good Samaritan view, given how little favour it has found among those who really do avow prenatal personhood. Footnote 10 The personhood question is intractable insofar as it has not yielded universal agreement about the fetus. Is this different, in this respect, from any other core moral dispute that bears on our legal rights? (Consider: there is not yet universal agreement that the institution of property rights is anything other than state-sanctioned theft.) It is a virtue of the good Samaritan defence of abortion, Boonin says, that it is not susceptible to sorites-type anxieties about where the exact threshold of personhood lies, or about how we are to morally distinguish abortion from infanticide, although he acknowledges that personhood-denying defences of abortion do field answers to these quandaries. And indeed they do. Is it much harder to persuade someone of those answers than to persuade her that abortion is tantamount to the morally permissible refusal to proffer life-saving bodily aid?

Asking what follows about abortion rights if the fetus is indeed a person is without doubt a revealing and worthwhile exercise. Even so, our imaginations tend to buckle under the strain of that presumption at certain points—hence, perhaps, the need to assist by giving the fetuses names (“Al”, “Bob”, “Daniel”), and help animate them as persons. What moral duties do we owe to abstract “persons” that are nothing like persons as we ordinarily conceive of them: without their separateness, their embedment in social life, their transparent vulnerability and emotion? This is perhaps not a question our moral sensibilities have been honed to answer. To object that it chafes too much to speak of the fetuses “Al” and “Bob” invites the obvious retort that one has simply stopped playing the intellectual game. Still, finding the game unplayable on these terms can be telling in itself.

A minor theme of Beyond Roe is the explanatory power of the good Samaritan defence of abortion rights over personhood-denying accounts. Footnote 11 But the personhood-denying defence has explanatory heft of its own. I end by noting just one way in which this is so. Like Thomson, Boonin accepts that the defence of abortion he outlines in Beyond Roe is more narrowly what has been called a defence of extraction . Boonin does not here assert a specific right to kill a fetus-person, only the right to end gestational support knowing this will spell fetal death (47–48). This poses clear problems for post-viability abortions, at which point the fetus could alternatively be extracted alive, still ending the woman’s bodily support. If a woman can expel a fetus alive, the good Samaritan argument does not hold that she is entitled to insist on fetal death, it seems.

Boonin regards this problem as being of limited practical import given how few abortions occur past the point of fetal viability. But recent developments in artificial womb technology threaten to force the issue of whether it is abortion or extraction (or both) that is ethically and legally licit. Whilst still exploratory, these developments hint at new possibilities for early fetal, and even embryonic, survival outside of the uterine environment. Suppose that an unwanted ten-week embryo could be removed from a pregnant woman’s womb and artificially gestated though to maturity. Where does this leave the abortion right on the good Samaritan defence? If we think the woman still ought to be able to control her procreative destiny by intentionally ending the life of that embryo, it is not the good Samaritan argument which will tell us this is so. What this action amounts to in moral terms, and how it should be treated under the law, will surely then depend on the intrinsic moral status of that embryo. Is it a creature whose life we are permitted to end so as to secure the all-round wellbeing of a more developed human being, or is it not?

With possibilities such as ectogenesis on the horizon, the question about the moral status of the fetus cannot be easily batted aside (and it would be remiss not to mention here that Boonin has elsewhere advanced developed views about moral status before birth Footnote 12 ). Changing legal and bio-technological landscapes will likely continue to press on both core questions in abortion ethics: is the fetus a rights-holding person, and, if so, what is the normative relevance of that? What Boonin presents here is a perspicuous and engaging treatment of the second issue.

J. J. Thomson, ‘A Defense of Abortion’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1:1 (Autumn 1971): 47–66.

McFall v. Shimp , 10 Pa. D. & C. 3d 90 (July 26, 1978).

Although, one might think the claim about legal permissibility is implied in Thomson’s version of the argument. It is passé to think that plenty of morally sub-optimal behaviour is not the law’s proper concern, and even less legitimate, we should therefore think, for the law to enforce positive assistance over and above what even morality requires us to do.

D. Boonin, A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

Thomson, ‘A Defense of Abortion’, 59.

I am by no means convinced that I would have no such duty.

Boonin discusses this issue at 117–119.

I have yet to come across someone who subscribes to prenatal personhood and yet regards abortion as morally and legally defensible in broadly good Samaritan terms.

For instance, he suggests, it explains why there is in fact no inconsistency in defending abortion rights while maintaining that fetuses can be adjudged victims of crimes, through, inter alia, ‘feticide’ laws. At a glance, feticide laws seem to ‘stand or fall together’ with the prohibition of abortion, all depending on one’s view of prenatal personhood. But the good Samaritan thesis explains why the abortion right could sit alongside feticide laws. The fact that Shimp should not be forced to let McFall use his bone marrow does not mean that McFall should not be treated as a victim if an armed robber comes along and kills him (55).

See: A Defense of Abortion (above).

Boonin, D (2002) A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge University Press)

Boonin, D (2019) Beyond Roe: Why Abortion Should be Legal Even if the Fetus is a Person (Oxford University Press)

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Greasley, K. Review of David Boonin, Beyond Roe: Why Abortion Should be Legal Even if the Fetus is a Person (Oxford University Press, 2019). Criminal Law, Philosophy 15 , 535–544 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-021-09580-x

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-021-09580-x

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A Closer Look at Rape and Incest Exceptions in States with Abortion Bans and Early Gestational Restrictions

Mabel Felix , Laurie Sobel , and Alina Salganicoff Published: Aug 07, 2024

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, there has been considerable media attention and legal scrutiny of the health and life exceptions to state abortion bans. This may emerge as an election issue as Former President Trump has stated that he supports rape exceptions to abortion bans, but the 2024 Republican party platform says states should decide their own abortion laws – with no mention of exceptions. The vast majority of Americans – about 8 in 10 – support legal access to abortion for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. While rape and incest exceptions have been part of the political debate, the feasibility of accessing abortion care under these exceptions has garnered much less attention.

Despite broad support for legal access to abortion in cases of rape or incest, 10 of the 21 states with abortion bans or gestational limits do not have an exception for pregnancies resulting from sexual assault. In the 11 states with rape and incest exceptions, lack of provider availability, law enforcement reporting requirements, and early pregnancy gestational limits can make access to abortion care unattainable for pregnant survivors of sexual assault (Figure 1).

Rape and incest exceptions to state abortion bans or gestational limits are often restricted to abortion early in pregnancy. Among the 21 states with abortion bans or early gestational limits, 11 make exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest and 10 do not. Of the 14 states with total abortion bans, nine (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas) lack a rape or incest exception. The remaining 5 (Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, and West Virginia) have exceptions for cases of rape or incest but limit these exceptions to the earlier stages of pregnancy. Most pregnant people discover they are pregnant at 5.5 weeks LMP , though people living on lower incomes, younger people, Black and Hispanic people, and those experiencing unintended pregnancies often discover their pregnancies later . Of the 7 states with overall gestational limits between 6 and 15 weeks LMP, six (Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, and South Carolina) have rape or incest exceptions. Arizona does not have a rape or incest exception in its law.

Most rape or incest exceptions require involvement of law enforcement, which can restrict abortion access for those who have become pregnant as a result sexual assault. In 5 of the states with rape or incest exceptions – Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, and West Virginia – pregnant people must report the sexual assault to law enforcement before they can receive abortion care. Many of these states additionally require that the pregnant person provide the physician a copy of the report ahead of receiving care. In Iowa, sexual assault survivors must report the incident “to law enforcement or a public or private health agency which may include a family physician”– within 45 days of the incident (140 days for cases of incest). In South Carolina, survivors are not required to report their assault to law enforcement before receiving abortion care, but physicians who perform abortions under the rape/incest exception must report the allegation of sexual assault to the sheriff in the county in which the abortion was provided.

It is estimated that only 21% of sexual assaults are reported . Survivors are often afraid to report sexual violence to the police due to fear of retaliation and the belief that law enforcement would not do anything to help.

These requirements can also delay care. There are no clear guidelines specifying how quickly law enforcement must issue a copy of the report in these states. Advocates argue it is difficult to get a copy of a police report while the sexual assault is still being investigated. Among the states that require law enforcement reporting, only Idaho specifies that survivors of sexual assault are entitled to receiving a copy of the report within 72 hours of making the request.

Pregnant people may face difficulty finding an abortion provider or securing an appointment. In states with total abortion bans, few abortion providers remain. Providers in states with early gestational limits (and the few remaining providers in states with total bans) may be unwilling to provide abortion care in instances of rape or incest – even when there is an exception – out of fear of prosecution. The sexual assault exceptions often do not specifically outline how physicians can ensure that they will not be prosecuted for providing an abortion that falls under the exceptions. In Idaho, Mississippi, and North Dakota clinics and abortion funds have counseled patients to leave the state to obtain abortion care because they have found that it is easier for people to obtain abortion care out of state than to attempt to receive care in-state under the exception.

It is instructive to consider a hypothetical scenario in West Virginia, an abortion ban state with a rape/incest exception. The state’s total abortion ban has an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, but only up to 8 weeks LMP (Last Menstrual Period) for adults, typically about 4 weeks after a missed period. Because most people discover they are pregnant at 5.5 weeks LMP, a person who is pregnant as a result of rape or incest in West Virginia typically would have only 2.5 weeks to:

Find and secure and appointment with a physician who is willing and able to provide the abortion
File a report of the assault to law enforcement and retrieve a copy of the report to provide to the physician performing the abortion at least 48 hours before receiving the abortion
Secure sufficient funding to pay for the abortion
Manage other logistical challenges, such as arranging childcare and time off work.

West Virginia’s ban is layered on top of the abortion restrictions implemented before the Dobbs decision: a 24-hour waiting period, mandatory counseling, an ultrasound offer, and for minors, parental or legal guardian notification or a judge’s approval. The flow chart below shows how tight this timing is. (Figure 2)

Few people have accessed abortion care under the rape or incest exceptions to state abortion bans . While data from states with abortion bans and exceptions for rape or incest is scant, estimates show that very few abortions are provided in states with total abortion bans, even in those with sexual assault exceptions. For example, Mississippi and Idaho each had 5 documented abortions in 2023, though neither specify the exception under which the abortions were provided. In West Virginia, 23 abortions were provided from January 2023 through June 2024 , but none are reported to have been provided under the state’s rape/incest exception. Since Indiana’s total ban went into effect in late August 2023, providers have reported that 5 abortions were provided due to rape or incest. The true number of pregnancies that result from rape is unknown. Given the extremely low number of abortions states have reported as qualifying for rape exceptions to abortion bans and what is known about the high rates of sexual violence that women experience, it would appear that these exceptions have not provided the level of access to abortion for pregnant rape survivors that the laws presumably are designed to protect.

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About six-in-ten Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases

Note: For the latest data on views of abortion, read this July 2022 report .

Abortion has long been a contentious issue in the United States, and it is one that sharply divides Americans along partisan, ideological and religious lines.

A line graph showing the public's views of abortion from 1995 to 2022

Today, a 61% majority of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 37% think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. These views are relatively unchanged in the past few years. The latest Pew Research Center survey , conducted March 7 to 13, finds deep disagreement between – and within – the parties over abortion. In fact, the partisan divide on abortion is far wider than it was two decades ago.

Related: Explore an interactive look at Americans’ attitudes on abortion.

In the latest survey, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are 42 percentage points more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say abortion should be legal in all or most cases (80% vs. 38%). This gap is little changed over the last few years, but the current divide is wider than it was in the past. For instance, as recently as 2016, there was a 33-point gap between the shares of Democrats (72%) and Republicans (39%) who supported legal abortion in all or most cases.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to better understand Americans’ views on abortion. For this analysis, we surveyed 10,441 U.S. adults in March 2022. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

A line graph showing that the partisan gap in views of whether abortion should be legal remains wide

This wider gap is mostly attributable to a steady increase in support for legal abortion among Democrats. In 2007, roughly two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic leaners (63%) said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Support among Democrats has risen by nearly 20 points since then, and 80% now say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Views among Republicans have remained relatively steady during this period. In 2007, around four-in-ten Republicans (39%) said abortion should be legal in all or most cases; today, 38% say this.

A bar chart showing wide ideological gaps in both parties in views of abortion

There are ideological differences within both parties over abortion, though the divide is starker within the GOP. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 60% of moderates and liberals say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with just 27% of conservative Republicans.

While liberal Democrats are 18 percentage points more likely than conservative and moderate Democrats to say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, wide majorities of both groups (90% and 72%, respectively) say this.

Support for legal abortion varies by race and ethnicity, education and religious affiliation.

A bar chart showing a modest gender gap in views of whether abortion should be legal

Majorities of adults across racial and ethnic groups say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. White adults and Hispanic adults, however, are slightly less likely to say this than Black and Asian adults. Roughly six-in-ten White (59%) and Hispanic adults (60%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with larger majorities of Black (68%) and Asian (74%) adults.

Support for legal abortion is greater among those with higher levels of education. While majorities of those with a postgraduate degree (69%), bachelor’s degree (64%) and those with some college experience (63%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, adults with no more than a high school education are more divided on the issue: 54% say abortion should be legal in at least most cases, while 44% say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

White evangelical Protestants continue to be opposed to abortion in all or most cases. Nearly three-quarters of White evangelicals (74%) say it should be illegal in all or most cases, while 24% say it should be legal in at least most cases. In contrast, a majority of White Protestants who are not evangelical (60%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Religious “nones” – those who are religiously unaffiliated – overwhelmingly support legal abortion. Over eight-in-ten (84%) say it should be legal in all or most cases, while just 15% say it should be illegal.

Among the public overall, there is a modest gender divide in views of whether abortion should be legal: 58% of men and 63% of women say it should be legal in at least most cases. Within both parties, the views of men and women are largely aligned. Among Democrats, 80% of both men and women say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Similarly, 36% of Republican men and 39% of Republican women say the same.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published July 17, 2017. Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

Hannah Hartig is a senior researcher focusing on U.S. politics and policy research at Pew Research Center .

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How Kamala Harris Can Secure Federal Abortion Protection Once and For All

A graphic featuring Harris and imagery pertaining to reproductive rights.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade set off a wave of new attacks on abortion, causing a catastrophic public health crisis and rapidly eroding our civil liberties and reproductive freedom. So far, 14 states have banned abortion completely, and others have severely limited access to abortion by criminalizing it after the earliest weeks of pregnancy.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic party’s nominee, has already indicated her support for abortion access and other forms of reproductive health care. At one of her first campaign events, she stated that if Congress “passes a law to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States I will sign it into law.”

The ACLU promises to hold Harris accountable for keeping this campaign promise if she is elected in November. Learn more in our breakdown:

Harris on Abortion Rights

The Facts: The Biden-Harris administration made abortion rights and reproductive health a priority during their four years in office. But anti-abortion politicians have had control of at least one body of Congress ever since Roe was overturned, preventing meaningful congressional action on abortion. Enacting federal legislation to protect the right to abortion throughout the country is a crucial and desperately needed step to rectify the harms of overturning Roe .

To be clear, abortion care was not accessible for far too many even before the end of Roe . If elected, Harris must carry out her promise to restore reproductive freedom by taking bold action to ensure that everyone can get an abortion if they need one, no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they have. She must not only demand legislation that codifies abortion rights and invalidates state bans and restrictions, but that also ends discriminatory barriers to abortion care, such as insurance coverage bans like the Hyde Amendment.

Why It Matters: Right now, millions of people of reproductive age live hundreds of miles from the closest abortion provider. In 2023 alone, more than 171,000 people were forced to travel outside of their home state to secure abortion access. As a result of abortion bans and other restrictions, countless people are being forced to continue their pregnancies against their will. Some states have gone so far as to criminalize the provision of abortion care in medical emergencies where the inability to get an abortion puts the pregnant person’s health, life, and future fertility in danger.

In the two years since Roe was overturned, however, there has been a groundswell of public support for abortion rights and rising opposition against bans and restrictions on abortion care. People in states across the country — including Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin — have repeatedly demonstrated their support for reproductive health care access since Roe was overturned.

Harris on Abortion

The ACLU will use every tool available to ensure that a potential Harris administration delivers on the promise to protect the right to abortion.

Source: American Civil Liberties Union

How We Got Here: Making good on his campaign promise to end Roe , President Donald Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who were part of the majority opinion that overturned the 50-year-old decision and took away the constitutional right to abortion. Since then, extreme politicians have increased their attacks on our reproductive freedom, enforcing bans that push care out of reach entirely in 14 states and attempting to use junk science to take an abortion pill off the shelves nationwide. These politicians even threatened to put doctors in prison for providing emergency abortion care to pregnant patients facing complications.

Our Roadmap: As a presidential candidate in 2020, Harris committed to working with Congress to pass a federal bill to codify abortion rights. She also promised to end the Hyde Amendment, which places restrictions on Medicaid coverage for abortion and has forced one in four low-income women seeking an abortions to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. The Biden-Harris administration took steps to remove this harmful restriction and, if Harris is elected, the ACLU will urge her administration to build on past progress to fulfill her campaign commitments.

In addition to ending the Hyde Amendment and protecting abortion access, the threat of misusing the Comstock Act as a national abortion ban must be eliminated. The Comstock Act is an 1873 anti-obscenity law that regulates the use of the mail and common carriers to send or receive anything that is “indecent, filthy, or vile” or “intended for producing abortion.” Trump’s advisors are threatening to misapply this law, claiming incorrectly that the Comstock Act functions as a national abortion ban. To ensure that no future anti-abortion president can weaponize this antiquated law, Harris must urge Congress to repeal it. The ACLU has already asked lawmakers to introduce the Stop Comstock Act, and we will demand that any legislation codifying abortion rights also repeals the Act.

Additionally, we urge a potential Harris administration to robustly defend pregnant people’s rights and ensure all hospitals satisfy their obligations under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals that receive Medicare funds to provide emergency stabilizing treatment, including abortion, to any patient who needs it. The ACLU will continue to work in the courts and with coalition partners to defend emergency abortion care, including urging Congress to swiftly respond in the event of a Supreme Court decision that eliminates these protections.

Lastly, while the Biden-Harris administration made steps toward expanding reproductive health care and contraception access, it must go further. If Harris is elected, the ACLU will work with her administration to urge Congress to make needed investments in Title X, a federally-funded family planning program that helps low-income people obtain critical health care services for free or at a reduced cost.

What Our Experts Say: “If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election this year, it will be because she prioritized reproductive freedom as a central tenet of her campaign, but that promise must be met with bold and urgent action. Harris has the opportunity to ensure that Congress enacts federal protections for abortion that reflect the American public's overwhelming support for reproductive freedom. That means demanding Congress send her a bill to sign that ensures everyone who needs abortion care can access it.” — Madison Roberts, ACLU senior policy counsel for reproductive freedom.

What You Can Do Today : Since Roe was overturned, abortion bans have gone into effect in states across the country. Today, anti-abortion extremists continue to attack medication abortion and emergency abortion care. It’s past time to make a change. Join our campaign to urge your congress members to pass federal legislation that safeguards our reproductive freedom.

Learn More About the Issues on This Page

Reproductive Freedom

ACLU Announces Roadmap to Protecting and Expanding Abortion and Birth Control Access Under a Harris Administration

Nebraska Supreme Court Upholds State’s 12-Week Abortion Ban and Transgender Care Restrictions

Court Rejects Attempt to Dismiss Case Seeking Accountability for Wrongful Prosecution of Abortion

Washington DC USA - July 1, 2024 - Reporters run paper copies of the Supreme Court decision to network anchors and analysts for live TV reports.

The Supreme Court Ruled, What Now?

Inside a medical practice sending abortion pills to states where they’re banned

"Welcome to modern abortion care," says Angel Foster, who leads operations at what's known as the MAP, a Massachusetts telehealth provider sending pills to people who live in states that ban or restrict abortion.

Elissa Nadworny / NPR

The packages, no bigger than a hardcover book, line the walls of the nondescript office near Boston. It's not an Etsy retailer or a Poshmark seller or, as the nearby post office workers believe, a thriving jewelry business.

These boxes contain abortion pills.

"Welcome to modern abortion care," says Angel Foster, as she holds up a box for mailing. Foster, who has an M.D. degree, leads operations at what's known as the MAP, a Massachusetts telehealth provider sending pills to people who live in states that ban or restrict abortion.

The MAP is one of just four organizations in the U.S. operating under recently enacted state shield laws, which circumvent traditional telemedicine laws requiring out-of-state health providers to be licensed in the states where patients are located. Eight states have enacted these shield laws.

Pregnant patients can fill out an online form, connect with a doctor via email or text and, if approved, receive the pills within a week, no matter which state they live in.

Shield law practices account for about 10% of abortions nationwide. There were 9,200 abortions a month provided under shield laws from January to March of this year, according to fresh data from the Society of Family Planning's WeCount project . And some researchers estimate that this number has risen since then and could be as high as 12,000 per month.

The rise of telehealth is part of why the number of abortions in the U.S. has continued to go up since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 — even though 14 states have near-total abortion bans. In those states, shield law providers represent the only legal way people can access abortions within the established health care system.

"If you want to have your abortion care in your state and you live in Texas or Mississippi or Missouri, right now shield law provision is by far the most dominant way that you'd be able to get that care," says Foster.

Back in Massachusetts, Foster glances down at the list of today's patients. The practice's four OB-GYNs have signed off on prescriptions for nearly two dozen women — in Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Most of today's patients are around six weeks along in their pregnancy. Many already have children.

"I really need an abortion pill. My state has banned it. My funds are really low," one patient wrote on the online form she filled out for the doctor.

"I'm a single mom with a kid under two," another wrote. "I can't afford a baby. I can't even afford this abortion."

Foster and her team serve patients who are up to 10 weeks pregnant and who are 16 or older. It costs $250 to get the two-drug regimen — mifepristone and misoprostol — in the mail, but there's a sliding scale and patients can pay as little as $5. The MAP is funded through abortion funds, individual donations and philanthropic gifts, and Foster has plans to apply for grants and state funding to help make the organization more sustainable. The MAP currently sends out about 500 prescriptions a month.

Yet to be tested in court, shield laws have some legal vulnerability

In the eight states with shield laws, abortion providers can treat out-of-state patients just as if they were in-state patients. The laws give abortion providers some protection from criminal prosecution, civil claims and extradition, among other threats. The laws have yet to be tested in court, but they certainly haven't gone unnoticed by lawmakers and groups looking to limit abortion.

"These websites are breaking the law … aiding and abetting crimes in Texas," says John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life. "We want to use all the instruments that we have, all the tools available, to really fight against this new trend of abortion pills by mail."

Seago says providers should still be held responsible for committing a crime that is executed across state lines. "Mailing the abortion pill is a state jail felony according to our pro-life laws," he says, "but enforcement of those policies has been a real, real challenge."

Mifepristone, a drug used in abortion care, at the MAP's office in Massachusetts.

His organization has been looking for the right individual or circumstance to challenge shield laws directly in court. Three Republican-led states recently tried to sue the Food and Drug Administration over regulations allowing doctors to send pills through the mail, but the Supreme Court threw out the case in June over issues of standing . Those plaintiffs say they'll fight on. And a Republican attorney general in Arkansas sent a cease-and-desist letter to a shield law provider.

Seago thinks many conservative prosecutors have been hesitant to take legal action, especially in an election year. But he says it's important to act quickly, before abortion by mail becomes pervasive.

The people who are sending these pills know that there's risk in what they're doing. Some providers say they won't travel to or through states with bans so that they can't be subpoenaed, be served legal papers or even be arrested if there's a warrant. That may mean avoiding layovers at Dallas Love Field airport or a detour around those places on a cross-country road trip. For Foster, it means she can't visit her mom and stepdad, who retired to South Carolina.

"The thing about shield laws is that they're new, so we don't have a precedent to go off of," says Lauren Jacobson, a nurse practitioner who prescribes abortion medication through Aid Access, the largest of the four shield law providers. She says she avoids large swaths of the United States. "We don't really know what will or won't happen. But I'm not going to Texas. I've been before though, so that's OK for me."

Shield laws don't offer blanket protection. The doctors and nurse practitioners who prescribe the pills have malpractice insurance in their states, but it's unclear whether those policies would cover suits from states with abortion restrictions. Patients use third-party payment services like Cash App or PayPal, which are also untested in how they would work under a shield law. Would they give up information on a provider or patient if requested to do so by law enforcement?

How the experience looks

Lauren, who is 33 and lives in Utah, got pregnant while on birth control and decided that she couldn't afford another child. (NPR is not using her last name because she's worried about professional repercussions.)

Abortion is legal in Utah until 18 weeks, but there are only a handful of clinics in the state. The closest one to Lauren was several hours away by car. Several years prior, she had an abortion at a clinic in Salt Lake City, and it hadn't been a pleasant experience — she had to walk through protesters. The guilt from her conservative Christian upbringing was overwhelming.

Shield law practices account for about 10% of abortions nationwide. There were 9,200 abortions a month provided under shield laws from January to March of this year, according to fresh data from the Society of Family Planning's WeCount project. Some researchers estimate that this number has risen since then and could be as high as 12,000 per month.

"I got in my car and I cried," she recalls. "I just never wanted to go through it again."

This time, Lauren got pills from Aid Access, a shield law provider similar to the MAP. "I was a little bit sketched out, I won't lie," she says. "Because like, well, where is this coming from? Who is this under? How are they prescribing this?"

She and her partner did research to try to figure out whether what they were doing was legal. She says ultimately she couldn't find anything that clearly stated that what she wanted to do — have pills sent from an out-of-state doctor — was illegal.

She filled out a form online with questions about how far along she was and her medical history and then connected with a doctor via email and text messages. She googled the doctor, who she found was legit and practicing out of New York.

A few days later, she received abortion medication in the mail and had her abortion at home.

"To do it in the privacy of your own home, where I felt more support as opposed to going through protesters," Lauren says. "Especially with a provider within the state of Utah. I feel like there's always a judgmental indication or undertone."

The online doctor also followed up to make sure everything had gone OK, which Lauren appreciated. "I felt it was a little bit more thorough," she says. "They're checking in on you, like, 'How did you respond? What symptoms? What's going on?'"

A staff member of the MAP brings the boxes containing abortion medication to the local post office.

In Massachusetts, the folks who run the MAP hear much the same from their patients. Many emails and messages are logistical, like this email: "I took the first pill on Friday and all the other pills on Saturday. For how long should I be bleeding as I'm still bleeding this morning?"

Many others offer disbelief, relief and gratitude. "I just wanted to say thank you so much," wrote one woman. "I was terrified of this process. It goes against everything I believe in. I'm just not in a place where I can have a child. Thank you for making the pills easily accessible to me."

When Foster, who runs operations for the MAP, does a final tally of the patients who are ready to have their pills sent out, she notices a new note from a woman who just paid, bringing the day's total number of patients from 20 to 21.

"I am a single mother on a fixed income, and I can not afford a kid right now."

It's from a woman in Alabama who is six weeks pregnant and filled out her form around lunchtime. Within an hour, a MAP doctor had reviewed her case and prescribed her the medication. She paid the fee as soon as she was approved. All in all, the whole process took about three hours. Foster is able to pack up those pills and add them to the batch headed to the post office.

By 3 p.m., the Alabama woman's package is scanned by the Postal Service worker.

It's expected to arrive by the week's end.

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The First Amendment and the Abortion Rights Debate

Sofia Cipriano

4 Prin.L.J.F. 12

Following Dobbs v. Jackson ’s (2022) reversal of Roe v. Wade (1973) — and the subsequent revocation of federal abortion protection — activists and scholars have begun to reconsider how to best ground abortion rights in the Constitution. In the past year, numerous Jewish rights groups have attempted to overturn state abortion bans by arguing that abortion rights are protected by various state constitutions’ free exercise clauses — and, by extension, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. While reframing the abortion rights debate as a question of religious freedom is undoubtedly strategic, the Free Exercise Clause is not the only place to locate abortion rights: the Establishment Clause also warrants further investigation.

Roe anchored abortion rights in the right to privacy — an unenumerated right with a long history of legal recognition. In various cases spanning the past two centuries, t he Supreme Court located the right to privacy in the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments . Roe classified abortion as a fundamental right protected by strict scrutiny, meaning that states could only regulate abortion in the face of a “compelling government interest” and must narrowly tailor legislation to that end. As such, Roe ’s trimester framework prevented states from placing burdens on abortion access in the first few months of pregnancy. After the fetus crosses the viability line — the point at which the fetus can survive outside the womb — states could pass laws regulating abortion, as the Court found that “the potentiality of human life” constitutes a “compelling” interest. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) later replaced strict scrutiny with the weaker “undue burden” standard, giving states greater leeway to restrict abortion access. Dobbs v. Jackson overturned both Roe and Casey , leaving abortion regulations up to individual states.

While Roe constituted an essential step forward in terms of abortion rights, weaknesses in its argumentation made it more susceptible to attacks by skeptics of substantive due process. Roe argues that the unenumerated right to abortion is implied by the unenumerated right to privacy — a chain of logic which twice removes abortion rights from the Constitution’s language. Moreover, Roe’s trimester framework was unclear and flawed from the beginning, lacking substantial scientific rationale. As medicine becomes more and more advanced, the arbitrariness of the viability line has grown increasingly apparent.

As abortion rights supporters have looked for alternative constitutional justifications for abortion rights, the First Amendment has become increasingly more visible. Certain religious groups — particularly Jewish groups — have argued that they have a right to abortion care. In Generation to Generation Inc v. Florida , a religious rights group argued that Florida’s abortion ban (HB 5) constituted a violation of the Florida State Constitution: “In Jewish law, abortion is required if necessary to protect the health, mental or physical well-being of the woman, or for many other reasons not permitted under the Act. As such, the Act prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and thus violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.” Similar cases have arisen in Indiana and Texas. Absent constitutional protection of abortion rights, the Christian religious majorities in many states may unjustly impose their moral and ethical code on other groups, implying an unconstitutional religious hierarchy.

Cases like Generation to Generation Inc v. Florida may also trigger heightened scrutiny status in higher courts; The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993) places strict scrutiny on cases which “burden any aspect of religious observance or practice.”

But framing the issue as one of Free Exercise does not interact with major objections to abortion rights. Anti-abortion advocates contend that abortion is tantamount to murder. An anti-abortion advocate may argue that just as religious rituals involving human sacrifice are illegal, so abortion ought to be illegal. Anti-abortion advocates may be able to argue that abortion bans hold up against strict scrutiny since “preserving potential life” constitutes a “compelling interest.”

The question of when life begins—which is fundamentally a moral and religious question—is both essential to the abortion debate and often ignored by left-leaning activists. For select Christian advocacy groups (as well as other anti-abortion groups) who believe that life begins at conception, abortion bans are a deeply moral issue. Abortion bans which operate under the logic that abortion is murder essentially legislate a definition of when life begins, which is problematic from a First Amendment perspective; the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prevents the government from intervening in religious debates. While numerous legal thinkers have associated the abortion debate with the First Amendment, this argument has not been fully litigated. As an amicus brief filed in Dobbs by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Center for Inquiry, and American Atheists points out, anti-abortion rhetoric is explicitly religious: “There is hardly a secular veil to the religious intent and positions of individuals, churches, and state actors in their attempts to limit access to abortion.” Justice Stevens located a similar issue with anti-abortion rhetoric in his concurring opinion in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989) , stating: “I am persuaded that the absence of any secular purpose for the legislative declarations that life begins at conception and that conception occurs at fertilization makes the relevant portion of the preamble invalid under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution.” Judges who justify their judicial decisions on abortion using similar rhetoric blur the line between church and state.

Framing the abortion debate around religious freedom would thus address the two main categories of arguments made by anti-abortion activists: arguments centered around issues with substantive due process and moral objections to abortion.

Conservatives may maintain, however, that legalizing abortion on the federal level is an Establishment Clause violation to begin with, since the government would essentially be imposing a federal position on abortion. Many anti-abortion advocates favor leaving abortion rights up to individual states. However, in the absence of recognized federal, constitutional protection of abortion rights, states will ban abortion. Protecting religious freedom of the individual is of the utmost importance — the United States government must actively intervene in order to uphold the line between church and state. Protecting abortion rights would allow everyone in the United States to act in accordance with their own moral and religious perspectives on abortion.

Reframing the abortion rights debate as a question of religious freedom is the most viable path forward. Anchoring abortion rights in the Establishment Clause would ensure Americans have the right to maintain their own personal and religious beliefs regarding the question of when life begins. In the short term, however, litigants could take advantage of Establishment Clauses in state constitutions. Yet, given the swing of the Court towards expanding religious freedom protections at the time of writing, Free Exercise arguments may prove better at securing citizens a right to an abortion.

Inside a medical practice sending abortion pills to states where they're banned

Elissa Nadworny

“Welcome to modern abortion care,” says Angel Foster, who leads operations at what’s known as the MAP, a Massachusetts telehealth provider sending pills to people who live in states that ban or restrict abortion. Elissa Nadworny/NPR hide caption

These boxes contain abortion pills.

Pregnant patients can fill out an online form, connect with a doctor via email or text and, if approved, receive the pills within a week, no matter which state they live in.

Dr. Stephanie Arnold, who is wearing a brightly colored jumpsuit, speaks with a patient who is sitting on an exam table with a medical drape over her lap.

Shots - Health News

Abortion is becoming more common in primary care clinics as doctors challenge stigma.

In this photo, Angel Foster poses for a portrait. She's wearing a white T-shirt and is standing in front of a brick wall.

"I really need an abortion pill. My state has banned it. My funds are really low," one patient wrote on the online form she filled out for the doctor.

"I'm a single mom with a kid under two," another wrote. "I can't afford a baby. I can't even afford this abortion."

Yet to be tested in court, shield laws have some legal vulnerability

Mifepristone, a drug used in abortion care, at the MAP's office in Massachusetts. The drug is inside orange boxes that have a white outline of a woman on the front.

Mifepristone, a drug used in abortion care, at the MAP's office in Massachusetts. Elissa Nadworny/NPR hide caption

Demonstrators hold an abortion-rights rally outside the Supreme Court on March 26 as the justices of the court heard oral arguments in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.

Abortion providers back to ‘business as usual’ after high court's mifepristone ruling

The image shows a bright blue sky and fluffy clouds above the Supreme Court building in the background, and protestors holding blue signs with white type that read,

Abortion bans still leave a 'gray area' for doctors after Idaho Supreme Court case

How the experience looks

This photo shows shipping boxes that contain abortion medication.

Shield law practices account for about 10% of abortions nationwide. There were 9,200 abortions a month provided under shield laws from January to March of this year, according to fresh data from the Society of Family Planning's WeCount project. Some researchers estimate that this number has risen since then and could be as high as 12,000 per month. Elissa Nadworny/NPR hide caption

"I got in my car and I cried," she recalls. "I just never wanted to go through it again."

A few days later, she received abortion medication in the mail and had her abortion at home.

A staff member of the MAP brings the boxes containing abortion medication to the local post office. The person is carrying one sack with each hand, and each sack is filled with shipping boxes.

A staff member of the MAP brings the boxes containing abortion medication to the local post office. Elissa Nadworny/NPR hide caption

"I am a single mother on a fixed income, and I can not afford a kid right now."

By 3 p.m., the Alabama woman's package is scanned by the Postal Service worker.

It's expected to arrive by the week's end.

abortion drugs
mifepristone
abortion provider
misoprostol
Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization
Roe v. Wade

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Inside a medical practice sending abortion pills to states where they're banned.

"Welcome to modern abortion care," says Angel Foster, who leads operations at what's known as<strong> </strong>the MAP, a Massachusetts telehealth provider sending pills to people who live in states that ban or restrict abortion.

These boxes contain abortion pills.

Pregnant patients can fill out an online form, connect with a doctor via email or text and, if approved, receive the pills within a week, no matter which state they live in.

"I really need an abortion pill. My state has banned it. My funds are really low," one patient wrote on the online form she filled out for the doctor.

"I'm a single mom with a kid under two," another wrote. "I can't afford a baby. I can't even afford this abortion."

Yet to be tested in court, shield laws have some legal vulnerability

How the experience looks

"I got in my car and I cried," she recalls. "I just never wanted to go through it again."

A few days later, she received abortion medication in the mail and had her abortion at home.

"I am a single mother on a fixed income, and I can not afford a kid right now."

By 3 p.m., the Alabama woman's package is scanned by the Postal Service worker.

It's expected to arrive by the week's end.

Supported by

Fact-Checking Claims About Tim Walz’s Record

Republicans have leveled inaccurate or misleading attacks on Mr. Walz’s response to protests in the summer of 2020, his positions on immigration and his role in the redesign of Minnesota’s flag.

Share full article

Flowers, candles, and various items placed on the street. A big black and white mural of George Floyd is seen in the background.

By Linda Qiu

Since Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was announced as the Democratic nominee for vice president, the Trump campaign and its allies have gone on the attack.

Mr. Walz, a former teacher and football coach from Nebraska who served in the National Guard, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 and then as Minnesota’s governor in 2018. His branding of former President Donald J. Trump as “weird” this year caught on among Democrats and helped catapult him into the national spotlight and to the top of Vice President Kamala Harris’s list of potential running mates.

The Republican accusations, which include questions over his military service , seem intended at undercutting a re-energized campaign after President Biden stepped aside and Ms. Harris emerged as his replacement at the top of the ticket. Mr. Trump and his allies have criticized, sometimes inaccurately, Mr. Walz’s handling of protests in his state, his immigration policies, his comments about a ladder factory and the redesign of his state’s flag.

Here’s a fact check of some claims.

What Was Said

“Because if we remember the rioting in the summer of 2020, Tim Walz was the guy who let rioters burn down Minneapolis.” — Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican nominee for vice president, during a rally on Wednesday in Philadelphia

This is exaggerated. Mr. Walz has faced criticism for not quickly activating the National Guard to quell civil unrest in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. But claims that he did not respond at all, or that the city burned down, are hyperbolic.

Mr. Floyd was murdered on May 25, 2020, and demonstrators took to the streets the next day . The protests intensified, with some vandalizing vehicles and setting fires. More than 700 state troopers and officers with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ mobile response team were deployed on May 26 to help the city’s police officers, according to a 2022 independent assessment by the state’s Department of Public Safety of the response to the unrest.

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IMAGES

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COMMENTS

Pro and Con: Abortion
An abortion can cost from $500 to over $1,000 depending on where it is performed and how long into the pregnancy it is. PRO. Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives. Abortion bans endangers healthcare for those not seeking abortions. Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.
Anti-Abortion Activists Want Abortion To Be 'Illegal And ...
Persuasion and the law. A majority of Americans favor some restrictions on abortion but support Roe v. Wade, according to national polls. But activists dedicated to the goal of ending abortion in ...
Key facts about abortion views in the U.S.
Women (66%) are more likely than men (57%) to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the survey conducted after the court's ruling. More than half of U.S. adults - including 60% of women and 51% of men - said in March that women should have a greater say than men in setting abortion policy.
Views on whether abortion should be legal, and in what circumstances
As the long-running debate over abortion reaches another key moment at the Supreme Court and in state legislatures across the country, a majority of U.S. adults continue to say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.About six-in-ten Americans (61%) say abortion should be legal in "all" or "most" cases, while 37% think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
Opinion
The Case Against Abortion. Nov. 30, 2021. Crosses representing abortions in Lindale, Tex. Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times. Share full article. 3367. By Ross Douthat. Opinion Columnist. A ...
Pro-Choice Does Not Mean Pro-Abortion: An Argument for Abortion Rights
Some in the anti-abortion camp contend that the existence of legalized abortion is a sign of the self-centeredness and selfishness of our age. Is there any validity to this view? Although abortion is a very difficult decision, it can be the most responsible decision a person can make when faced with an unintended pregnancy or a pregnancy that ...
7 persistent claims about abortion, fact-checked : NPR
An analysis of data from 2013 to 2018 showed the national case-fatality rate for legal induced abortion was 0.41 deaths per 100,000 legal induced abortions, lower than in the previous five years.
There Are More Than Two Sides to the Abortion Debate
The decision to keep the child should not be left up solely to the woman. Yes, it is her body that the child grows in, however once that child is birthed it is now two people's responsibility ...
How Abortion Views Are Different
May 19, 2021. For nearly 50 years, public opinion has had only a limited effect on abortion policy. The Roe v. Wade decision, which the Supreme Court issued in 1973, established a constitutional ...
As the Supreme Court considers Roe v. Wade, a look at how abortion
Wade, a look at how abortion became legal Abortion did not become illegal in most states until the mid to late 1800s. But by the 1960s, abortion, like childbirth, had become a safe procedure when ...
The negative health implications of restricting abortion access
The U.S. legalized abortion nearly 50 years ago, at a time when it was legally restricted in many countries around the world, setting an important international precedent and example. It disappoints me to see that while important progress has been made towards equality in other culturally polarized areas such as same-sex marriage, women's ...
Reasons Why Abortion Should not Be Legal Essay
For this reason, abortion should not be legalized. Abortion undermines morality in the benevolence of who has the power to give and take life. It is believed that life begins at conception, and therefore from the moment of conception, the baby is considered a human being. Every human being has the right to life, and the choice of taking human ...
Answers to Common Questions About Abortion Access
Published June 8, 2022 Updated July 1, 2022. The United States Supreme Court overruled the landmark Roe v. Wade case on June 24, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion in a monumental ...
Why Abortion Should Be Legalized: [Essay Example], 1331 words
Why Abortion Should be Legal. First, it supports the principal human rights for women by giving them a decision or a choice; it decreases wrongdoing by diminishing the number of children growing up non-ideal conditions. As well, women have the option to have the decision to decide to have an abortion for a few significant arguments.
PDF Safe and Legal Abortion is a Woman's Human Right
International legal support for a woman's right to safe and legal abortion can be found in numerous international treaties and other instruments, and the relevant provisions of these documents are listed in Table I. The right to choose abortion has support in guar-antees of life and health, freedom from discrimination, and autonomy in ...
Abortion Should Not Be Legalized: [Essay Example], 591 words
Abortion is a highly controversial topic that has sparked intense debate and divided public opinion for decades. While some argue that it is a woman's right to choose, others believe that it is morally and ethically wrong. In this essay, we will explore the various dimensions of the abortion issue and argue that abortion should not be legalized.
Why Abortion is Illegal? Comparison of Legal and Illegal Abortion: A
Abstract. Abortion is the termination of pregnancy that occurs spontaneously or purposely. In the most developed world, abortion is legally allowed for women seeking safe termination of pregnancies. Particularly, when access to legal abortion is restricted, abortion is the resort to unsafe methods. The aim of this review is to necessitate safe ...
Access to safe abortion is a fundamental human right
Abortion is a common medical or surgical intervention used to terminate pregnancy. Although a controversial and widely debated topic, approximately 73 million induced abortions occur worldwide each year, with 29% of all pregnancies and over 60% of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion. Abortions are considered safe if they are carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to ...
Abortion Care in the United States
Risk depends on the type of abortion, gestational duration, characteristics of the patient, and the clinician's level of experience. 60,61 The incidence of major complications (hospital admission, surgery, transfusion) is <0.3%, and the incidence of minor complications (self-limited bleeding, ongoing pregnancy) is <4%. 38,62,63 Legal induced ...
Review of David Boonin, Beyond Roe: Why Abortion Should be Legal Even
In Beyond Roe: Why Abortion Should be Legal Even if the Fetus is a Person (Oxford University Press, 2019), David Boonin presents an engaging restatement of this way of thinking about abortion, citing Thomson as its intellectual progenitor, and defending it against the more prominent objections to stack up in the years since Thomson's watershed intervention.
A Closer Look at Rape and Incest Exceptions in States with Abortion
Despite broad support for legal access to abortion in cases of rape or incest, 10 of the 21 states with abortion bans or gestational limits do not have an exception for pregnancies resulting from ...
61% of Americans say abortion should be legal
Roughly six-in-ten White (59%) and Hispanic adults (60%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with larger majorities of Black (68%) and Asian (74%) adults. Support for legal abortion is greater among those with higher levels of education. While majorities of those with a postgraduate degree (69%), bachelor's degree (64% ...
How Kamala Harris Can Secure Federal Abortion Protection Once and For
The Facts: The Biden-Harris administration made abortion rights and reproductive health a priority during their four years in office. But anti-abortion politicians have had control of at least one body of Congress ever since Roe was overturned, preventing meaningful congressional action on abortion. Enacting federal legislation to protect the right to abortion throughout the country is a ...
Inside a medical practice sending abortion pills to states where they
As the number of abortions nationwide grows, pregnant people in states with restrictions and bans are getting pills from out-of-state providers. Some say these providers are breaking the law.
The First Amendment and the Abortion Rights Debate
While numerous legal thinkers have associated the abortion debate with the First Amendment, this argument has not been fully litigated. As an amicus brief filed in Dobbs by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Center for Inquiry, and American Atheists points out, anti-abortion rhetoric is explicitly religious: "There is hardly a secular veil ...
Meet the people sending abortion pills to places with bans : NPR
As the number of abortions nationwide grows, pregnant people in states with restrictions and bans are getting pills from out-of-state providers. Some say these providers are breaking the law.
Tim Walz Signed Bill Making Minnesota a Sanctuary State for Child ...
Dubbed the Trans Refuge Bill by supporters, the law grants legal protection to children who travel to Minnesota for so-called gender affirming care, including puberty blockers, reconstructive ...
What Minnesota Voters Think of Tim Walz
Last year, Mr. Walz, with the support of a Democratic state legislature, led Minnesota in a decidedly leftward direction, supporting initiatives that enshrined the right to abortion in state law ...
Inside a medical practice sending abortion pills to states where they
The rise of telehealth is part of why the number of abortions in the U.S. has continued to go up since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 — even though 14 states have near-total abortion bans. In those states, shield law providers represent the only legal way people can access abortions within the established health care system.
Fact-Checking Claims About Tim Walz's Record
The commission — not Mr. Walz — chose and modified a design by Andrew Prekker of Luverne, Minn. Mr. Prekker, who does part-time work in graphic design, said in an interview on local news that ...

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