A Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe would not immediately make abortion illegal. It would, however, remove federal constitutional protection for a woman’s right to choose. States would then have the power to determine to what degree they would (or would not) permit abortion. This means that women’s ability to access safe abortion services would vary according to where they live. Some women could have access to some services; others would have access to none. Life for women could change in any (or all) of the following ways:

• State governments would be given free rein to interfere in a woman’s personal medical decisions from determining the circumstances under which she can carry her pregnancy to term to preventing a woman from engaging in some legal conduct during her pregnancy, such as exercising or continued employment.

• The number of illegal and unsafe abortions would skyrocket. Left with no better options, more women and teenagers who cannot access legal abortion services will turn to quack doctors or try to perform their own abortions. Many would be permanently disabled. In the worst cases, women will die.

• Women could be jailed for having an abortion to preserve their health or future fertility or to end a pregnancy that resulted from rape or incest. Sound unlikely? States like Illinois have already adopted post-Roe abortion policies that fail to make exceptions for these kinds of circumstances.

• Women carrying fetuses with severe and fatal abnormalities could be forced to carry to term. Anencephaly, for example, is a birth defect that results in the fetus missing part of the skull and brain. Death comes before or shortly after birth.

• Thousands of women would be forced to travel long distances out of states that banned abortions to others where abortions were still allowed. The year before the Roe decision, over 100,000 women left their home state to have the procedure legally in New York City—some traveling more than 1000 miles.

• Married women could be legally forced to involve abusive husbands in making the decision to have an abortion. As recently as 1992, such a law from Pennsylvania came before the Supreme Court. Thanks to the legal precedent set by Roe, the Court struck it down as unconstitutional.

  Read the Center's new report What If Roe Fell?