Fifty years after ‘Roe,’ abortion rights battle shifts to the states

Sunday marked the 50^th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, granting federal constitutional protection for the right to seek an abortion. Last year, a very different Supreme Court overturned Roe, erasing that federal right for women across the United States and, instead, giving individual states broad authority to regulate and restrict abortion within their borders.

In this report co-produced by PBS NewsHour, KHN senior correspondent Sarah Varney joins “PBS News Weekend” anchor John Yang to discuss how abortion opponents and supporters are taking their campaigns to the states, the impact of abortion bans on medical care for women, and the emerging conflicts over medication abortion pills.

We asked people across the country what the abrupt shift in abortion access has meant to them, and we lay out the stakes in the political battles ahead.