By Kebé, Kylee Sunderlin, and Elizabeth Ling
The day the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, our Repro Legal Helpline saw ten times the number of inquiries than the day before.
Using the Dobbs decision as the starting point, this first-ever report from the Helpline explores how the rapidly changing legal landscape of abortion is harming all pregnant people in the United States through analyzing caller data.
The Helpline identified five trends emerging the wake of Dobbs that are curtailing people’s access or punishing people for abortion: including the denial of emergency abortion care, a rise in health care providers being used as an arm of the state the criminalize their patients or deprive them of care the state opposes, the elimination of abortion access for people facing incarceration, parole, or probation, and the criminalization of people who support others access abortion.
No one should need a lawyer to understand how to access abortion without risking punishment. Yet, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs has forced people to navigate a dangerous web of abortion restrictions that can impact vastly different legal rights, and risk, based on nothing more than the difference of a few days of pregnancy, or a few minutes of travel across a state border.
→ Read the Helpline Callers at a Glance summary
→ Read the full report in English
→ Read the full report in Spanish
What is the Repro Legal Helpline?
The Repro Legal Helpline provides confidential, judgment-free legal services no matter your age, location, or where you are in your reproductive life. At the root of our legal services is the understanding that you know you, and we know the law.
→ Contact the free and confidential Repro Legal Helpline
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The If/When/How Network organizes services and community support to defend people and their families from the harms of state violence–and we need you.
We need both attorneys and advocates. If you’re an attorney, we need your pro-bono skills to help us provide criminal, immigration, and family defense. We’re also looking for advocates and attorneys to support people with judicial bypass, housing, intimate partner violence, and other client-centered needs.
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