Abortion in the South:
Abortion is currently banned on or around 20 weeks, with certain limited exceptions, in: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. In Texas, that limit is six weeks.
Many Southern states are looking to Texas' Senate Bill 8, a new law that effectively bans all abortions past six weeks of pregnancy, as a model for future legislation. The law's restrictions take effect before many know they are pregnant and provide no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.
Quick hits:
➡ The Texas law, which took effect September 1, allows anyone to file civil lawsuits with penalties of up to $10,000 in damages against anyone who "aids or abets" in abortion. A majority of conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the law to take effect, because the new civil enforcement mechanism strips the usual procedure for reviewing anti-abortion laws in federal court. Despite a temporary administrative halt, SB 8 is currently in effect.
➡ The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in December in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case that could reinstate a Mississippi law passed in 2018 that would prohibit all abortions after 15 weeks.
➡ Louisiana passed its own 15-week ban on abortions in 2018, attaching the law to Mississippi's. The case challenges Roe v. Wade's 1973 ruling which made abortion legal up to 24 weeks nationwide—a decision that was reaffirmed 20 years later in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. If the Supreme Court upholds Mississippi's law, Louisiana's legislation is also set to take effect.
➡ State officials across the South banned most abortions during the pandemic, arguing that it was necessary to free up resources to fight COVID-19. When a federal appeals court allowed Texas to continue its near-total ban on the procedure in April 2020, it forced many seeking abortions to violate stay-at-home orders, crossing state lines into Louisiana for abortive care—a pattern that has continued amid uncertainty.
Latest abortion coverage
Illustrated: The South isn't so anti-abortion after all. Kentucky proved it at the polls.
Activists across Kentucky organized voters against an amendment that would have prevented a right to abortion or abortion funds in the state constitution. In illustration, meet three folks who were part of the movement to defeat Amendment 2.
Media coverage of abortion is under attack
Scalawag is committed to fighting disinformation alongside trusted news organizations like Prism, DAME Magazine, and Rewire News Group.
Q&A: Southern abortion providers on what the media's getting wrong
A conversation with abortion workers across the South to unpack the performative nature of abortion coverage, share paths toward refocusing the reporting, and explain the intersections between abortion care and abolition work.
I'm an abortion doula in the Deep South. This is what I want you to know.
Abortion doulas and reproductive justice workers across the country are preparing for what feels like an inevitable reality: The overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Roe is down. Keep supporting these abortion funds.
The best way to support reproductive justice is by giving our time and resources to providers and mutual-aid organizations across the South.
Scalawag knows the South. Sign up for our newsletter for more stories from across the region, every Friday.
More in reproductive justice:
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Doctor who performed hysterectomies on ICE detainees 'operated by a different set of rules' in rural Georgia
The same doctor also saw scores of other vulnerable, low-income women in the area.
Georgia tried to ban abortions. Telehealth offers a new alternative.
The number of people seeking telemedicine abortions has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in Southern states notoriously hostile to reproductive justice.
'Abortion bans aren't just about abortion'—The fight for reproductive justice in the South
'[W]hat good is Roe v. Wade to the South if people can't access the abortion care they need?'
Reproductive justice wins in Tennessee aren't just about abortion
How Southern organizers are charting the course toward quality healthcare, abortion rights, work-family policies, and other ways to ensure wellness in marginalized communities.
Abortion is still legal in Georgia–for now
These groups are fighting the state's abortion ban and they need your support.
Mississippians are on the frontlines of the battle for abortion rights
A woman who survived an illegal abortion tells her story as Mississippi lawmakers pass the most restrictive anti-abortion bill in the nation.
Black Body As Told By The Stirrups
Do you remember when we met How no drugs were administered How the hands that opened you were cold and soiled How the unsurgical steel slid you open easy as an envelope
Alabama may have solutions to the nation's Black maternal health crisis
Healthcare providers have a plan to solve the maternal and infant crisis in Alabama. It's an approach that could work everywhere: a return to midwifery care.
Midwifery makes a comeback in Alabama
As Alabama figures out how to integrate midwifery into state-sanctioned care, will Black birth workers be left out? Or will the state with deep midwifery history figure out how to lead the country's birth crisis?
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