Roe V. Wade Overturned: How Abortion Bans Will Impact New Jersey

NEW JERSEY — The expected decision became official, as the Supreme Court of the United States voting Friday to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Although New Jersey codified abortion rights into law, the high court's decision could significantly impact New Jersey.

The court's repudiation of Roe and a subsequent case on fetal liability — Planned Parenthood v. Casey — was expected. In May, Justice Samuel Alito Jr.’s majority opinion draft was leaked to Politico, setting the stage for a seismic shift in abortion rights.

Although the ruling on the Dobbs case was 6-3, the decision to strike down Roe and Casey was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing a concurring opinion that said overturning the landmark statute went too far.

Since the public saw the draft decision, New Jersey leaders reiterated that a reversal of Roe wouldn't affect those seeking an abortion in the state. But with much of the county likely to ban or make it nearly impossible to get an abortion, more people from out-of-state may travel to New Jersey for the procedure.

At least 26 states are certain or likely to make it nearly impossible for a pregnant individual to get a procedure that was completely legal for her mother, grandmother or even great-grandmother, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research and policy group.

With the decision, abortion would become illegal or a nearly impossible procedure to get in about half of U.S. states, including large swaths of the South, Midwest and Northern Plains.

New Jersey passed the Freedom of Reproductive Choice act in January, protecting the right to have an abortion in the state. But activists said the bill didn't go far enough, citing that the bill doesn't require insurance providers to cover the medical procedure. Read more: NJ Abortions Now Protected By Law; Activists Seek Accessibility

Following the leak of the draft decision on Roe, Gov. Phil Murphy announced that New Jersey won't cooperate with out-of-state investigations seeking to punish abortion patients, providers or anyone involved in helping someone get the procedure.

Murphy also proposed a series of bills May 11, which included the expansion of potential abortion providers, legal protections against states that outlaw abortion and establishing a fund for medical professionals to provide abortions to uninsured or underinsured patients. Under the governor's proposals, insurance plans in New Jersey would fully cover abortion costs. Read more: Abortion Fully Covered By Insurance In Gov. Murphy's Proposed Laws

Abortion is already illegal or soon will be in 13 states with pre-existing “trigger” laws banning abortion set to take effect with the dismantling of Roe and Casey, and another four are poised to ban it, according to the Guttmcher Institute. Nine have so-called fetal heartbeat laws that make the procedure illegal before many women know they are pregnant.

Abortion rights were long considered settled law; and even as conservative states pushed fetal heartbeat laws — deemed unconstitutional at the time — and others restricting abortion access to bring the court to this moment, many legal scholars doubted a right that generations had counted on was in serious jeopardy.

The case that made it to a full hearing before the court, Mississippi’s 15-week ban on abortion, came after former President Donald Trump appointed three conservative judges — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and, a few months before his term ended, Amy Coney Barrett, who replaced liberal stalwart Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September 2020.

The court heard oral arguments on the Mississippi case in December.

Lawyers for the state of Mississippi had proposed an array of mechanisms to uphold the 15-week abortion ban but said the court ultimately should overturn the "egregiously wrong" Roe and Casey rulings.

If the court "does not impose a substantial obstacle to 'a significant number of women' seeking abortions," the state argued at the time, the justices should reinterpret the "undue burden" standard established in Roe and give the state the authority to "prohibit elective abortions before viability" of the fetus.

Correction: A previous version of the article stated that the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to strike down the Roe v. Wade decision. The justices voted 5-4 to overturn the ruling but voted 6-3 in the Dobbs case.