How promises of a ‘post-Roe future’ have fallen short

CNN’s review of pledges made and bills introduced to help mothers and children post-Roe finds little action in DC or states where abortion bans were put in place.

Weeks after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, a then-little-known Republican congressman from Louisiana introduced a short bill that proposed amending the Social Security Act to ensure child support payments be made for an “unborn child.” “The Unborn Child Support Act” has gone nowhere. But the congressman has. He’s Mike Johnson, now the speaker of the House. More than two years after the Dobbs decision and nearly a year into a job that gives him control over which legislation get debated and voted on, Johnson hasn’t touched the bill or any of its provisions. That’s far from unique. CNN’s review of dozens of pledges made and bills introduced to help mothers and children living in a post-Roe America found little action, either in Washington or in state capitals where abortion bans were quickly put in place. Abortion remains a dominant political issue going into November up and down the ballot. But on the state level, despite much fast and thorough action to ban or limit the procedure mostly in Republican-led states, only a handful of measures have been enacted to address the aftermath of those bans. In several places where politicians have spoken at length about the need to do more to help mothers and children, like in Iowa, or where bills were introduced only to stall out, like in Missouri, any substantive laws passed related to the post-Dobbs reality have only solidified those restrictions. Few of those new laws are about mothers during their pregnancies or after. Few address child care, for infants or beyond. Even as independent researchers find the number of births going up – as well as higher rates of maternal and infant mortality and greater economic insecurity – in states where abortions are most limited, there’s been little substantive legislative action in response. “For many pro-lifers, this has just not been in their lane before. It’s been, ‘We have Roe, how do we chip away at Roe?’” said Samuel Lee, a deacon who’s the director of Campaign Life Missouri, an anti-abortion group that runs pregnancy centers but also pushes for funding increases for housing, child care and other measures.