The South’s Last Three Abortion-Safe States Are Bracing for a Post-Roe Future

The U.S. Supreme Court this week heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a high-profile case about the constitutionality of Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed the law, which has no exceptions for rape or incest, in 2018, with the intention that it would take effect if Roe v. Wade were overturned. That landmark 1973 case set out a legal framework that protected the right to an abortion until fetal viability at 24 weeks of pregnancy.