On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned nearly 50 years of precedent protecting the right to an abortion prior to viability. Under Roe v. Wade, the legal landscape of abortion was a complex patchwork of state laws and court decisions regulating access to the procedure. The Dobbs decision further compromised abortion access by allowing states to ban all or most abortions.
While some states moved quickly to ban abortion, others have strengthened protections for abortion as a response to Dobbs. New “shield laws” attempt to limit the liability of abortion providers and patients who travel to another state to receive care that is increasingly becoming criminalized.
This dataset provides a high-level overview of state abortion restrictions and protections enacted post-Dobbs, tracking key legal developments from June 1, 2022, through June 1, 2023 .
The dataset was conceptualized by Temple University’s Center for Public Health Law Research and the Society of Family Planning to serve as a resource for researchers seeking to better understand the impact of the Dobbs decision, and as a companion resource to the Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount project.