Despite a strong showing of support for abortion rights on Election Day, the abortion access landscape in the United States won’t change immediately. Under President Donald Trump’s second term, it will remain heavily fragmented and vulnerable to future restriction.
Voters in seven states – Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York – passed pro-abortion ballot initiatives at the polls this week. About a fifth of abortions in the US occur in those states, according to data from the Society of Family Planning.
In most of those states, abortion is already legal, and the ballot measures maintain access by enshrining the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Only in Arizona and Missouri did voters approve measures to expand abortion access, allowing for the right to an abortion to be enshrined in the state constitutions up to fetal viability.
However, adding constitutional protection does not automatically repeal bans or restrictions; litigation is often necessary to overturn pre-existing state laws, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Even if the ballot measures in Arizona and Missouri improve access in those states, about 40% of women of reproductive age will still be living in states with abortion bans or restrictions.
Florida, a key abortion access point for the South, saw a decline in abortions after implementing a more restrictive policy limiting abortion after six weeks of gestation. Advocates were hopeful that a ballot measure would help patch some of the gaps created by the ban, but it fell short of passing.
Medication abortion, a significant factor in the rising number of abortions in the US, faces potential changes under the incoming administration. The increased use of medication abortion, especially through telehealth, is vulnerable to significant change.
The re-election of Donald Trump raises concerns about the safety of those needing reproductive health care, according to Dr. Daniel Grossman, an Ob-Gyn and director of the University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health.
