
This tracker is a joint project of the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Brennan Center for Justice.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old landmark ruling that the federal Constitution protects a right to abortion. In the wake of the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a number of states quickly moved to enforce abortion bans and restrictions, spurring a slate of emergency litigation to protect reproductive rights under state law. In this tracker, the Brennan Center for Justice and the Center for Reproductive Rights aggregate pending and completed state court litigation against bans that were, or would have been, unconstitutional under Roe.
This is not a summary of abortion access in the states — for information on the current status of state abortion bans and restrictions, as well as laws protecting abortion access in the states, please see the Center for Reproductive Rights’s After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State. To learn about state court decisions that established state constitutional protections for abortion rights prior to Dobbs, please see the report on State Constitutions and Abortion Rights.
As of May 10, 2023, a total of 38 cases have been filed challenging abortion bans in 21 states, of which 28 remain pending at either the trial or appellate levels.
So far, the South Carolina Supreme Court has held that its state constitution protects the right to an abortion, while the Idaho Supreme Court has reached the opposite conclusion.
Several courts have also declared their state constitutions provide limited rights to abortion. For instance, the North Dakota Supreme Court has ruled that its state constitution protects the right to an abortion when necessary to preserve life or health. The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled that its state constitution protects the right to an abortion when needed to preserve the life of the patient. Notably, neither of these courts have determined whether their state constitutions protect the right to abortion in other contexts.