Member-only story
Why States Rushed to Protect Abortion in 2019
Conservatives enacted aggressive abortion restrictions in 2019, but a record number of states fought back
A woman’s right to choose was under siege in 2019. Emboldened by the new conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, anti-abortion advocates entered a new phase of their fight, enacting aggressive measures in at least 17 states that ranged from banning and criminalizing abortion outright to forcing doctors to offer false information about “reversing” the procedure.
But these attacks also led to a growing number of abortion rights advocates and lawmakers to successfully push for measures protecting access to abortion care at the state level.
The number of measures protecting or expanding abortion care enacted went from 5 in 2018 to 36 in 2019, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Overall, more protections were enacted this year alone than in the entire preceding decade, the organization said.
“We had a record of nine states that advanced legislation that protects abortion rights, expands abortion access, or does both. That’s more states doing that in a single year than ever in our nation’s history,” Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH), told GEN.
