Article snippet: Several states that would make it a felony to perform an abortion at any stage of pregnancy. Missouri lawmakers followed with a ban on abortion beginning at eight weeks. Lawmakers have approved these bills despite Roe v. Wade, a landmark 1973 US Supreme Court ruling that established constitutional protection for a woman’s right to an abortion. State Representative Terri Collins, the Republican who sponsored Alabama’s abortion bill, said after its passage in the state Senate that the bill was “about challenging Roe v. Wade.” So what rights does Roe v. Wade specifically protect, and what is the constitutional backing for the right to an abortion? Will these new state laws survive legal challenges? Or could Roe, a 45-year-old ruling, be overturned? In 1970, a pregnant Texas woman identified by the pseudonym Jane Roe filed a lawsuit challenging a Texas law that threatened doctors with fines or jail time if they performed an abortion. When a district court struck down the Texas law, the state appealed to the Supreme Court, which decided the case in 1973. In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld Jane Roe’s right to have an abortion and came to two significant conclusions. First, states could not explicitly restrict abortion before the end of the first trimester, and second, if states chose to regulate abortions before a fetus is viable — meaning the point after which a baby could reasonably survive outside a womb — they had to do so to protect the “maternal health.” ... Link to the full article to read more