It triggered a wave of change. Abortion bans were brought in, court cases mounted, clinics closed. Here is what has happened in the seven months since US abortion rights were overturned.
First off, what is Roe v Wade?
Roe v Wade refers to the 1973 Supreme Court case that said the government could not prohibit abortions because the constitutional right to liberty includes the right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy.
Roe refers to Texan woman Norma McCorvey – known by the pseudonym Jane Roe – who challenged the state’s abortion laws after she couldn’t get a termination in 1969 because her life was not in danger. Wade is district attorney Henry Wade, who defended the anti-abortion laws.
The court decision meant every woman in the US had the right to an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Another ruling – Planned Parenthood v Casey in 1982 – built on that by saying states could not have laws that create a “substantial obstacle” to a woman seeking an abortion up to 24 weeks.
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States ban abortion
In 12 states, there are now near-total bans on abortion. In five of these states, the ban is being challenged in court but remains in effect.
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The 12 states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
Two further states – North Dakota and Wisconsin – do not have bans in place but abortions are unavailable because clinics have closed.
Georgia has banned abortions past six weeks of pregnancy, severely limiting access to terminations because so many women do not find out they are pregnant – and have time to organise the procedure – before the six-week mark.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, which specialises in reproductive health, these 15 states are home to almost 22 million women aged 15 to 49. That means almost a third of America’s women of reproductive age are living in states where abortion is either unavailable or severely restricted.
More states could follow
A further nine states have introduced restrictions to abortion that would have been unconstitutional under Roe v Wade, have bans currently blocked by the court or are likely to introduce bans in the near future.
Arizona and Florida do not allow abortions past 15 weeks, while Utah has an 18-week ban.
In three states – Indiana, Wyoming and Ohio – near-total or early-gestation bans have been blocked by state courts for now, but lawmakers have indicated they intend to fight them.
In Iowa, Montana and Nebraska, anti-abortion policymakers have indicated that they want to ban abortion soon, but abortion care remains available for now.
What’s happened to abortion clinics?
At least 66 abortion clinics have stopped offering abortion care in the 15 states where abortion is banned or severely restricted.
The loss of these clinics is felt nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute, as clinics in states where abortion remains legal are inundated with people travelling interstate.
As the institute explains: “These dramatic increases in caseloads mean clinic capacity and staff are stretched to their limits, resulting in longer wait times for appointments even for residents of states where abortion remains legal.”
Astudyfrom the Society of Family Planning estimated legal abortions nationwide fell by more than 10,000 in the two months following the overturning of Roe v Wade, although some women may have sought abortion pills privately.
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3:11
Abortion revolution in the US
Exacerbating inequality
Many of the states that have banned or restricted abortion have high proportions of black, Latina and indigenous women.
Research by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed how overturning Roe v Wade disproportionately impacts women of colour, as they are more likely to get abortions, have more limited access to health care, and face barriers to travelling out of state for an abortion.
The Guttmacher Institute notes in addition that “people living with low incomes… transmen and nonbinary people, immigrants, adolescents and people living with disabilities are all particularly likely to encounter compounding obstacles to abortion care and be harmed as a result”.
Some states have introduced protections
While the US has seen significant rolling back of abortion rights, there are pockets of good news for pro-choice activists.
Voters in Kansas protected abortion rights in the state’s constitution by rejecting an amendment that would have allowed lawmakers to restrict access to abortions.
New York will provide free abortion pills at four public clinics, making its health department the first in the nation to offer free medication abortion.
In the midterms, voters in five states chose to protect reproductive rights. Vermont, Michigan and California added protections to their state constitutions while voters in Kentucky rejected an amendment that would have removed any protection for abortion rights from the constitution.
In Montana, a bill that could have criminalised doctors for providing abortions was defeated.
Medical abortions account for the majority of abortions in the US – in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, abortion pills were used in 53% of cases.
Early evidence suggests they have become even more popular since Roe v Wade was overturned – one studysuggested the number of people seeking medical abortions has increased threefold.
At the beginning of January, the Food and Drug Administration changed its rules to allow retail pharmacies in the US to dispense abortion pills for the first time.
However, abortion pills are now seen as the next frontier in the fight by anti-abortion activists and they are pushing hard to curtail access.
TikTok has promised a court battle over a new law that threatens to ban it in the US – with the app’s boss saying “we aren’t going anywhere”.
President Joe Biden approved the law that states the platform will be blocked if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell it within nine months.
US politicians are worried the company could share user data with the Chinese government, despite repeated assurances from TikTok that it would not.
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Mr Biden signed it off early on Wednesday – with TikTok’s boss swiftly hitting back in a video on the platform.
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere. The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again,” said chief executive Shou Zi Chew.
A statement by the company added: “This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court.
“We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail.”
The legal challenge could argue a ban would deprive the app’s 170 million US users of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.
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The law could also face opposition from TikTokcreators who rely on it for their income, while China has previously said it would oppose a forced sale.
Attracting around 170 million US users in seven years, TikTok has taken America by storm. But there have long been concerns in Washington about the China-based ownership of the social media platform.
Beijing-based tech firm ByteDance originally launched the Chinese version of the app called Douyin, meaning “shaking sound”, in 2016. They followed up with an international version – TikTok – in November 2017.
Since then, the platform has had a meteoric rise. Fuelled by its popularity among Gen-Z, it has become an influential social media platform. But it has become a target for both sides of the political spectrum in Washington, as well as in other Western countries, due to fears over the use of user data.
Politicians and officials in the US have expressed concerns that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over US user data. TikTok has said it has never done that and would not do so if asked. There are also fears over influence on Americans by suppressing or promoting certain content on TikTok.
The use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly four million employees on devices owned by its agencies is already banned in the US, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes. A similar ban is also in place for civil servants in the UK.
India was the first country to ban TikTok in 2020 following a violent clash on the India-China border that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead. Interestingly, TikTok is also not available in app stores in China – where the internet is tightly controlled by the state – and Douyin is used instead.
Last month, TikTok’s chief executive appealed to US users directly to stop the bill forcing the app’s sale and accused lawmakers in the US of attempting to shut down the platform. In a video posted on the platform, Shou Zi Chew told users the bill “will lead to a ban of TikTok in the United States”, adding: “Even the bill’s sponsors admit that’s their goal.”
The use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly four million employees on devices owned by its agencies is already banned in the US.
However, there are limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes.
Senate commerce committee chair Maria Cantwell said the move to force TikTok’s sale was not aimed at “punishing” ByteDance, TikTok, or other companies.
“Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our US government personnel,” she said.
Only two months ago Joe Biden joined the social media platform TikTok with a video captioned “lol hey guys”. Now, the US president is poised to sign a bill that could ban the popular app – unless its parent company sells it.
The country is concerned that TikTok’s owner, Beijing-based tech firm ByteDance, could be forced by Chinese authorities to hand over the user data of almost 170 million American app users.
On this episode, Niall Paterson unpicks the possible ban with Arthi Nachiappan, our technology correspondent. Plus, Chris Stokel-Walker, author of TikTok Boom: China’s Dynamite App And The Superpower Race For Social Media, joins Niall to discuss the app’s impact in the US – as well as China’s influence on technology.
Since recording this episode, TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in a statement: “This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court. We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail.
“As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired.”
Shares in Meta, the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, have fallen sharply after the company revealed it had raised its cost forecast for the current year.
Investors sent the stock 10% lower in after-hours trading in New York when Meta‘s first-quarter results showed further bills were expected to fund new artificial intelligence (AI) products and the infrastructure behind them.
The company, founded and run by Mark Zuckerberg, said it now forecast 2024 capital expenditure in the range of $35bn-$40bn.
That was up from a previous range of $30bn-$37bn.
It also raised its total expenses forecast to $96bn-$99bn – a rise of $2bn in the low-range mark.
The shifts, while hardly huge in scale, nevertheless threaten to reopen old wounds following a 2022 row with investors over Zuckerberg’s bets on technology.
Meta has been updating its ad-buying products with AI tools and short video formats to boost revenue growth, while also introducing AI features like a chat assistant to drive engagement on its social media properties.
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The other main key metrics reported by the company beat financial market expectations, according to LSEG data.
Total revenue rose 27% to $36.5bn and Meta forecast a slight improvement in the current March-June quarter.
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However, its low-range sum came in below market forecasts and analysts said that the company’s view had contributed to the share price sell-off.
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February: Facebook turns 20
A 10% reduction in the share price equated to lost market value of $125bn (£100.3bn) they said, as the values continued to fluctuate.
The stock remains around 30% up on the year to date.
Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said of the reaction: “Meta’s substantial investment in AI has the ability to hugely improve engagement with its platforms, and therefore the amount marketers are prepared to pay for ad space.
“The group has indeed surpassed expectations in a time when digital advertising uncertainty remains rife.
“Over 50 countries are due… elections this year, which hugely increases uncertainty, and digital spending tends to move down when risks increase.
“This speaks to Meta’s enormous scale and importance to modern-day marketers. Its fortunes are probably also being bolstered by TikTok’s uncertain future in the US. One potential outcome from all this turmoil could well see TikTok added to the Meta family.”
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