What would happen to Roe v. Wade if two new Justices were appointed to the Supreme Court who agreed with Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas that the government may ban abortion from the moment of conception? What would that mean for women's access to abortion in America?

A reversal of Roe would shift the power to set abortion policy back to the states. Would states have to pass new criminal laws or could they get old bans enforced? Could state governments rush to court seeking to lift decades-old injunctions against criminal abortion laws? Would they succeed?

Don't we need to know?

We certainly do.

We need to know where we are vulnerable so we can strengthen protections at the state level. We need to know how vulnerable we are so we can wake up the pro-choice public who believe it can't happen. And we need to know to refute pundits like Jeffrey Rosen, legal commentator for the pro-choice New Republic, who opined last year that we shouldn't worry about a Roe reversal because the right to abortion "isn't likely to be threatened on a broad scale." Not so. This month, the Center released our report, What If Roe Fell?: The State-by-State Consequences of Overturning Roe v. Wade. We looked at the laws, the court decisions, the constitutions, and the political environment in every state (and Puerto Rico and Guam) to determine what would happen in the wake of a Roe reversal. While most people assume that the re-criminalization of abortion would take time, and be subject to public debate and the legislative process, the truth is otherwise.

There are old laws are on the books that could ban abortion right away in many states. In states where the old laws have never been blocked by a court, state officials could begin enforcing these laws immediately; in states where the old laws have been blocked but never repealed, state officials could move to vacate court orders preventing enforcement and then enforce the bans. And anyone who claims that states are unlikely to enact new laws banning abortion simply hasn't been paying attention.

The results of our study surprised even us. We found that women in more than half the nation would be vulnerable to efforts by anti-choice forces to ban abortion. Seventy million women of childbearing age live in the 30 states most vulnerable to bans on abortion; that's over half the women of childbearing age in the entire country.

Only 20 states have legal protections in place that would likely protect women against any attempts to ban abortion. In many of those states- including Alaska, Florida, Montana, and West Virginia-the right to choose is stronger because of cases the Center won.

But solid protection for abortion rights for less than half the female population of the United States isn't good enough. Our mission is to ensure reproductive freedom-including the right to safe, legal abortion-for all women, not just in U.S. states and territories, but around the world. Until that day comes, we will never give up. And all of our successes are made possible by your generous support.

You have our deepest gratitude.

Nancy Northup, President
Center for Reproductive Rights