2021 was pivotal year for abortion laws in America
ABC News
A half century of abortion rights for American women faltered in 2021 and may be more widely rolled back in 2022.
For half a century, American women have had the right to choose to end a pregnancy at any point before a fetus is viable outside the womb. If 2021 saw that freedom start to crumble, 2022 could see it more widely wiped away.
"I think this is the time," said an anti-abortion rights activist from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who declined to share her name this fall while outside the state’s only remaining abortion clinic in Jackson.
Mississippi, which has asked the Supreme Court to end constitutional protection for abortion, appears likely to at least win affirmation of its 15-week ban on the procedure -- more than two months earlier than the current standard allows.
Texas, which now forbids abortions after six weeks, has become the first state to effectively eliminate most procedures statewide since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. SB8, which has been in effect for nearly four months, has defied repeated legal challenges with its novel enforcement mechanism that pits citizen against citizen.