USAT: If Roe reversed, 22 states likely to impose significant restrictions

[DeepModem Mom]

'Roe v. Wade': The divided states of America
Updated 4/17/2006
By Susan Page, USA TODAY



....USA TODAY used the Guttmacher data and other factors to calculate how states would be likely to respond if Roe were reversed. The 1973 decision recognized access to abortion as part of a constitutional right to privacy and limited states' ability to restrict it....

•Twenty-two state legislatures are likely to impose significant new restrictions on abortion. They include nearly every state in the South and a swath of big states across the industrial Rust Belt, from Pennsylvania to Ohio and Michigan. These states have enacted most of the abortion restrictions now allowed.

Nine states are considering bans similar to the one passed in South Dakota — it's scheduled to go into effect July 1 — and four states are debating restrictions that would be triggered if the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

•Sixteen state legislatures are likely to continue current access to abortion. They include every state on the West Coast and almost every state in the Northeast. A half-dozen already have passed laws that specifically protect abortion rights. Most of the states in this group have enacted fewer than half of the abortion restrictions now available to states.

•Twelve states fall into a middle ground between those two categories. About half are in the Midwest, the rest scattered from Arizona to Rhode Island.

The result, according to this analysis, would be less a patchwork of laws than broad regional divisions that generally reinforce the nation's political split. All but three of the states likely to significantly restrict abortions voted for President Bush in 2004. All but four of the states likely to maintain access to abortion voted for Democrat John Kerry....

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-16-abortion-states_x.htm

[cali]

1. Somehow this just

isn't on the top of my worry list. The votes aren't there to overturn Roe. It's years away from happening, if ever. The upholding of the so called federal PBA is a much more immediate concern.

[jackbourassa]

2. This analysis is way off...

First of all, it assumes that because a legislature is Republican they will move to restrict abortions. While there may be some truth to this, the article fails to consider something. That the people might be put off by such an act. Take the recent bill in South Dakota as an example. After signing the bill that would outlaw abortion, the Governor there took a major tumble in the polls (about 20%). Where once he had a 70% approval rating, he now has only a 50% rating - and this is in conservative South Dakota. I suspect the same thing will happen elsewhere.

In the 1970s, the country was pretty evenly divided on abolishing the death penalty. But when the court established a moratorium on it, the countries reaction was swift and unequivocal. Public support for the death penalty surged. I think the same thing will happen in this case. Also, some states, including Tennessee, have constitutions that go much further in protecting abortion rights. So even if Roe is overturned it would have no effect, since state legislatures would have to ammend their own constitutions, which is not an easy thing to do.

So several states may attempt to abolish or seriously restrict abortion rights, but just like the Death Penalty in the 1970s, the decisions will be reversed. Then just like now, where serious candidates would never admit to be against the Death Penalty, the same will hold true of abortion.

This is a lose-lose issue for the Republicans. If they abolish abortion, they'll take hell by the public (who support abortion rights by 66%), and their actions will only be reversed later - if they don't, they'll take hell by their own base. They can't win on this issue.

[Chulanowa]

3. Anybody remember the old "Jesusland" joke?

Looks about the same to me.