Roe v. Wade

Abortions in Texas fell by 60% in the first month under the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S. in decades, according to new figures that for the first time reveal a full accounting of the immediate impact.

President Biden insists that he strongly believes in the rights spelled out in the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that are now under the direst threat in decades. But he barely even uses the word "abortion" and when his administration has been asked about what it can do to protect reproductive rights, the response has mostly been that Congress must write the landmark court decision into law, a strategy that is highly likely to fail.

The Supreme Court ruled that Texas abortion providers can sue over the state’s law that makes abortion illegal after cardiac activity is detected in an embryo, but the justices are allowing the law to remain in effect.

Texas offers a glimpse in real time of what would be a striking new national landscape if the Supreme Court drastically curtails abortion rights: GOP-led states allowing almost no access to abortion, and women traveling hundreds of miles to end their pregnancies.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it's likely at least 22 states would immediately move to ban abortion.

Texas officially appealed two days after a federal judge temporarily blocked the new law.

Reproductive Freedom Congregations is a group of churches uniting against Texas's new abortion law in support of women's right to choose. Texas Right to Life, the organization which helped draft the law is defending it as helping to prevent women from making a devastating decision.

The Texas Medical Association called two anti-abortion bills unconstitutional and criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for not blocking the broader law from going into effect.

The Texas law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in May, would ban abortion in the nation’s second-biggest state after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks of pregnancy and is before many women even know they are pregnant.