Abortion is a critical component of reproductive healthcare and a common procedure, with nearly 1 in 4 pregnant individuals having an abortion by the age of 45. Since the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which upheld a pregnant individual’s constitutional right to seek an abortion, state legislatures have created a complex patchwork of laws regulating when and how abortion services can be provided, and abortion has since become one of the most highly regulated procedures in the United States. The June 24, 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned the federal protection for pre-viability abortions, allowing states to ban or severely restrict abortion and further dividing access to abortion.
The Abortion Law Project includes a comprehensive suite of datasets covering 16 different types of abortion regulations:
This State Abortion Laws dataset provides a general overview of these 16 regulatory areas within each state and includes laws in effect from December 1, 2018 through November 1, 2022. This dataset was created by the Policy Surveillance Program of the Center for Public Health Law Research in collaboration with subject matter experts from Resources for Abortion Delivery (RAD), Guttmacher Institute, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), National Abortion Federation (NAF), and Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), who conceptualized and developed the Abortion Law Project. If you need broader contextual information on state laws and policies, national level information, or data and evidence related to abortion and other reproductive health issues, please contact the Guttmacher Institute at info@guttmacher.org.
Disclaimer: The information contained herein does not constitute legal advice. If you have questions regarding your legal rights or obligations, contact an attorney. If you are an abortion provider seeking legal compliance guidance, the following collaborating organizations may be able to assist you: ACLU, CRR, PPFA (for affiliated health centers), NAF, and Regulatory Assistance for Abortion Providers (a project of RAD).
While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure that the information in this resource is complete and accurate, the creators make no guarantee that it is error-free; if you encounter information that you believe is inaccurate, please contact us at lawatlas@temple.edu or RAAP@radprogram.org.
**Note: CPHLR is working collaboratively with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) on the NICHD-funded Legal Epidemiology of Abortion Policies (LEAP) Study to build longitudinal abortion policy data covering changes from 2005 through 2022. These data will be publicly released on LawAtlas.org upon completion of the project period anticipated in 2027. To learn more about the LEAP Study, please visit the study webpage.
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