Republican lawmakers in a handful of conservative states have stumbled on a roadblock to what they thought would be a clear path to setting new restrictions on abortion if the Supreme Court upends the landmark Roe v. Wade decision: right-to-privacy protections enshrined in their own state constitutions.
In states where courts have ruled that their constitutions' explicit privacy rights extend to the right of a woman to have an abortion, the procedure would continue to be legal even if the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling is overturned, legal scholars and abortion-rights advocates said.
