te supreme court Overturned Roe v. Wed Friday, holding that abortion is no longer a federal constitutional right. Going forward, abortion rights will be determined by the states, unless Congress takes action.
Here are answers to some of the most common questions about what this decision means.
Will women be arrested for having abortions?
The criminal liability of an abortion-seeker will depend on the abortion policies that her state has implemented.
Leaders of the anti-abortion movement have said in the past that women should not be prosecuted for obtaining abortions and that criminal laws prohibiting this should be aimed at abortion providers or others facilitating the procedure. In many states with abortion prohibitions, which can go into effect with a reversal of the row, language is exempt from prosecuting a woman who obtained an abortion.
There is nothing to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to prosecute people seeking abortions.
Where is the law for these individuals, in the event of rape or incest or even underage pregnancy?
Waivers of abortion restrictions for rape, incest or the health of the mother will now vary from state to state. In the wave of abortion border Of those recently passed by state legislatures in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling, only a few resolutions include exemptions for rape and incest.
It is a question that MPs will revisit now that the opinion has been submitted. Previewing plans to convene a special legislative session after the opinion was released, Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said he opposed rape or incest exemptions. On the other hand, Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson told CNN this May That he supported adding rape and incest exemptions to the trigger law currently on the books in the state.
How is in vitro fertilization defined? If a state defines the fertilized egg as human with rights, then if a doctor fertilizes four eggs, but does [not] Transplanting all four into one woman, is that murder?
what does this opinion mean fertility treatment still uncertain. Some state laws contain language that appears to exempt from the disposal of unused embryos intended for IVF, but that language does not necessarily exempt the process of selective reduction—when a woman whose fertility treatment has resulted in multiple pregnancies. One or more of them are embryos. terminated to protect the viability of other embryos and/or the health of the mother. Broadly speaking, fertility law experts raise concerns about how Roe’s reversal will prompt lawmakers to regulate IVF procedures – which have been largely avoided by the abortion debate because of Roe’s safety. Huh.
Why doesn’t the Democrat-controlled legislature currently pass a federal law making abortion legal?
Democrats currently lack the votes to eliminate it Senate Filbuster, A 60-vote procedural mechanism that Republicans can use to block federal abortion rights legislation — so long as 40 senators oppose abortion rights. But it’s worth noting that the Women’s Health Protection Act – a bill that would codify and expand on Roe – fail 49-51 When it was voted on in the Senate in May, meaning that, even without the filibuster, it would not have become law.
There are also legal questions about whether it would be constitutional for federal lawmakers to impose a nationwide ban. The late Justice Antonin Scalia, in his legal writings about abortion, insisted that policy decisions were in the hands of individual states, while expressing doubts that Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate the procedure.
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