Where Your State Stands on Abortion T


he Supreme Court’s historic Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s


Health Organization decision empowered every state to craft its own regulatory framework for abortion. The result: a tangled, state-


by-state legal hodgepodge. Post-Dobbs, 13 states


imposed near-total bans on


abortion, providing only narrow exceptions to protect the life of the mother.


Another nine states


prohibited telehealth — the prescription of abortion drugs via phone without an actual doctor’s visit. But in other states, the legal pendulum swung in the


opposite direction. Twenty-seven states now allow abortion drug prescription via telehealth phone calls, rather than a doctor’s visit. Twenty-two states and the


District of Columbia adopted shield laws that block any cooperation with abortion- related criminal investigations launched by other states.


That means states that want to investigate a doctor for prescribing abortion drugs across state lines won’t get any help.


And six states decided to


allow abortions at any age of gestation, presumably even up to the day of delivery. This map shows the wide


expanse of U.S. state abortion laws:


Thirteen states have declared a near-total ban on abortions.


Eight states imposed gestational limits of between six and 18 weeks by which any abortion must occur.


Nine states have passed laws specifically prohibiting the telehealth prescription of abortion drugs.


Twenty-two states have adopted shield laws that block any abortion-related criminal investigations or prosecutions.


Nine states have no gestational limits on abortions.


Eight states passed shield laws specifically protecting doctors who prescribe abortion drugs to pregnant women living in states that ban abortions.


Prescription of abortion drugs by telehealth is fully legal in 27 states.


SOURCES: Guttmacher Institute, Kaiser Family Foundation, Charlotte Lozier Institute *Wisconsin’s prohibition against the use of telehealth to prescribe abortion drugs predates the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. The law has been in effect since 2011.


with Roe v. Wade, getting the Supreme Court justices nominated and eventu- ally confirmed. He was willing to take the political hit for that,” he says. Four years later, however, and the


ultimate outcome of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is far from clear. Most observers assumed that the annual number of U.S. abor- tions would begin to drop post-Roe. But instead of declining, abortions have jumped by over 20%, according to some estimates.


That’s bitter news for those who


believe that every one of the 1.13 mil- lion U.S. babies aborted last year was a precious creation in God’s image. In April 2021, the FDA under Pres-


ident Joe Biden announced it would “exercise enforcement discretion” on women who used telemedicine to receive the mifepristone abortion pill by mail. That meant the usual in- person clinical visit would no longer be required. Suddenly, someone who wanted an


abortion just had to pick up the phone or log onto the internet. In December 2021, Biden’s FDA announced it would make that accom- modation permanent — what seemed like a temporary provision to avoid the spread of COVID-19 was now the new standard procedure.


EASY AS PIZZA The shield laws that blue states began passing in the aftermath of the 2022 Dobbs decision added to pro-lifers’


OCTOBER 2026 | NEWSMAX 9


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