The landscape of abortion bans, in one must-see map

The landscape of abortion bans, in one must-see map "These are the states you see in orange, in this graphic below, which uses data from the Guttmacher Institute to map all the laws that ban later-term abortion in the United States. The slightly lighter states represent those where a ban exists but is not in effect, due to a pending legal challenge."



On the page, the above is interactive, you pick the time period to show the highlighted states. I was certainly surprised by some of the data.

"Twenty-one states had laws that banned abortions after viability, most with exceptions for the life or health of the woman. These laws are considered legal under Roe v. Wade, which found that states have a “compelling” interest in protecting a fetus that “presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb.”

States had also passed laws that banned abortion later in the pregnancy, at specific week. These laws, as Nash explained to me, are thought to be a violation of standing abortion case law, which says that the point of viability must be determined by a physician not the state.

Since they often have little practical effect (98.7 percent of abortions happen prior to 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), states have left them on the books. New York, however, is currently trying to repeal a ban on abortions 24 weeks after the last period.

The 20-week bans looked different. For one, they moved up to an earlier point in pregnancy. Secondly, some in the anti-abortion movement saw them as a way to bring a new abortion case to the Supreme Court. Moving up earlier in the pregnancy would, the thinking went, likely bait a new challenge.

It didn’t quite work: Most of the 20-week bans still stand as law, without any court challenge. Laws in Arizona, Idaho and Georgia have subsequently been challenged, after the Nebraska law spent a year on the books untouched."