Before the 2024 presidential election, it was expected that one of the big issues that would get the female vote out for Kamala Harris would be women’s reproductive rights. This followed the 2022 “Dobbs decision” of the US Supreme Court which had effectively struck down 50 years of protection for a woman’s right to an abortion under the 1973 decision Roe v Wade.
Many people thought the presidential election would be a referendum on this issue. Donald Trump was viewed by many, particularly among Democratic voters, as the architect of the Dobbs decision as it was his administration that had stacked the Supreme Court with the conservative justices who wrote the judgment.
Instead of women being protected by a federal right to choose, the decision was returned by Dobbs to the individual states to make their own laws. Kamala Harris pledged that, if elected, she would pass a national law protecting women’s reproductive rights. But she lost the election. So where do the various states stand on the issue?
