The Supreme Court appears to be on the cusp of ending its 49-year-old legal precedent that protects abortion rights nationwide if the majority signs on to a draft opinion obtained and published by Politico on Monday.

The revelation of the draft opinion does not have an immediate effect on abortion access. If the apparent majority willing to overturn Roe v. Wade stays firm, the precedent would not be overturned until the formal release of the court's ruling, which is likely to come in June.

But the ruling previewed in the draft authored by Justice Samuel Alito would upend abortion access by giving states the ability to decide how aggressively to restrict access to the procedure. Here's what to know.

What is the draft opinion?

A draft opinion is just what it sounds like, an opinion that is still in the works and has not been finalized. Politico obtained and published what it described as a draft Supreme Court majority opinion striking down Roe v. Wade. It was written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito and circulated among the justices in February.

Notably, the opinion is a draft and the court's votes are not final until the formal opinions are officially released. Drafts are often amended and changed based on the input of the other justices. In some instances, justices have switched sides before an opinion is issued, such as when Chief Justice John Roberts flipped and saved Obamacare in 2012.

The opinion in the case in question, Dobbs v. Jackson, is a challenge to Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban. The state had asked the justices to use the case to reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling -- and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling upholding Roe -- that together guarantee a right to an abortion before a fetus is viable.

What does the draft mean immediately for abortion rights?

Until a final opinion is released, Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land. Justices can, and have in the past, changed their votes after initial draft opinions are circulated.

But the revelation of where the court is likely headed will undoubtedly supercharge what have been contentious fights in state legislatures over how to prepare for a ruling that overturns Roe and put abortion at the forefront of the national political discourse as the country awaits the final ruling.

What does the draft signal about where the court is going on Roe?

The draft signals that there were at least five votes for overturning Roe when the justices privately convened after the case's oral arguments, which were held in December.

Under normal procedures, by the end of that week, the justices would have met in their private conference to take a preliminary vote on the issue.

They would have gone around the table in order of seniority discussing their views on the case. Roberts, as chief justice, would have gone first. After that initial tally, if the chief was in the majority, he would assign the majority opinion. Otherwise, the most senior justice would have that responsibility. After that, drafts go between justices' chambers. In the past, justices have changed their votes and sometimes a majority opinion ultimately becomes a dissent.

It appears, according to Politico's report, that five justices were willing to vote to overturn Roe. Roberts did not want to completely overturn Roe v. Wade, sources tell CNN. At the same time, he wants to uphold the Mississippi law. That would leave the four justices willing to join an Alito opinion overturning Roe outright to be Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

What will happen to abortion access if the court overrules Roe?

Abortion access would depend on where you live in the country. In the draft opinion, Alito writes that the Constitution makes no reference to abortion and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision: "It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's representatives."

That would mean state legislatures could choose for themselves how much to restrict abortion access. Several states are poised to implement extreme limits or outright bans on the procedure. Some states have on their books so-called trigger bans, which would put into effect prohibitions on abortion if and when the Supreme Court releases a formal opinion overturning Roe.

Activity around passing restrictive laws in red states picked up after the Dobbs case was taken up for review and after oral arguments suggested the conservative wing may have had five voters to overturn Roe.

For instance, Kentucky and other states passed 15-week bans, like the Mississippi law before the Supreme Court, while other state legislatures sought to bar abortion earlier in the pregnancy. Some of those laws, including Kentucky's, have already been blocked by federal courts that cited the existing Supreme Court abortion precedent that has not yet been overturned.

On the other side of the spectrum, Democratic-led states are considering proposals to shore up abortion rights. Connecticut's legislature recently approved legislation to make abortions easier to obtain in the state and that would protect their abortion provider from the anti-abortion laws of other states. Similar proposals are under consideration in New York, California and elsewhere.

Some purple states might take a middle ground approach, stopping short of banning abortion outright, but limiting at earlier points in the pregnancy than what was previously allowed under the line current precedent draws at viability, a point around 23 weeks into pregnancy.

The U.S. Senate will consider legislation that would attempt to block states from banning abortions, essentially keeping the status quo for abortion policy in the U.S. Legislation could go up for a vote next week.

The proposed legislation comes in the wake of a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would undo the legal precedent set in Roe versus Wade. The draft published by Politico earlier this week indicates the Supreme Court is poised to undo Roe versus Wade, opening the door for states to ban or curtail a person’s ability to seek an abortion.

While most Democrats have vowed to legislate abortion rights into law, such legislation likely does not have enough support despite Democrats holding advantages in both the Senate and House. Such a measure could require 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. Some Democrats have also expressed a reticence to eliminate the filibuster.

“They spent a decade, two decades trying to repeal Roe and now they won't own up to it,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said about Republicans. “They're like the dog that caught the bus. They know they're on the wrong side of history. They know they're on the wrong side of where the American people are. They know they'll pay consequences in the 2022 elections. And their spin masters are telling them to avoid the subject and they did.”

The leader of Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell, expressed his displeasure at the leak.

“Never before, never before in modern history has an internal draft been leaked to the public while the justices were still deciding a case. Never before. Whoever committed this lawless act knew exactly what it could bring about. The Justices already require security,” McConnell said.

Democrats appear poised to use the 2022 midterm election as a referendum on abortion rights.

“If the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law,” President Joe Biden said earlier this week.

WASHINGTON — The Senate has passed legislation to beef up security for Supreme Court justices.

Lawmakers are seeking to ensure that justices and their families are protected as the court deliberates abortion access and whether to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The bipartisan bill passed by voice vote with no objections Monday.

While it doesn't provide additional funding, that could come later.

The measure aims to put the court on par with the executive and legislative branches, making certain the nine justices are provided security as some protesters have gathered outside their homes.

The legislation comes one week after Politico leaked a draft of a Supreme Court opinion that indicated Roe v. Wade would be overturned as soon as June.

The bill now moves to the House for its consideration before heading to President Joe Biden’s desk.

NEW YORK —

Top leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called on the faithful to pray and fast Friday, in hopes the Supreme Court is on track to overturn the constitutional right to abortion. Yet even among Catholics who oppose abortion, there is some unease about the consequences of such a ruling.

A recently leaked Supreme Court draft opinion suggests that a majority of the nine justices are poised to reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision – a move that would allow individual states to outlaw abortion.

Some anti-abortion Catholics say such an outcome would be the answer to their prayers. Others caution that Catholic leaders should distance themselves from the politically partisan wing of the anti-abortion movement and expand their concept of “pro-life” by supporting broad policies that set up safety nets for unwed mothers and low-income families.

Madison Chastain, a Catholic blogger and disability advocate, describes herself as anti-abortion, yet opposes overturning Roe and criminalizing abortions.

Factors that cause abortion, she wrote in the National Catholic Reporter, include lack of comprehensive sex education, inadequate health care, and workplace inequalities.

“Making abortion illegal before addressing these injustices is going to kill women, because women will continue to have abortions, secretively and unsafely,” she wrote.”

Sam Sawyer, a journalist and Jesuit priest, says he is a “dedicated pro-life advocate” who favors Roe’s reversal. Yet he responded to the leak with an essay listing reasons why abortion rights supporters are so alarmed by that prospect.

“The pro-life movement and its political alliances are perceived as a threat not just to abortion itself but also to democratic norms, to judicial commitments to civil rights, and to women’s health and economic security,“ Sawyer wrote in America, the Jesuit magazine for which he is a senior editor.

Republican politicians, backed by anti-abortion leaders, “have used the lives of the unborn as moral cover for ignoring other calls for justice,” Sawyer wrote. “The pro-life movement’s political allies have gutted social safety net programs that would make it easier for women to carry pregnancies to term.”

The call for a day of fasting and prayer came from Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, the president of the U.S. bishops conference, and Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

They requested prayers for the overturning of Roe and for “the conversion of the hearts and minds of those who advocate for abortion.”

The archbishops echoed the calls of other Catholic leaders who, after the Supreme Court leak, suggested that a reversal of Roe should be coupled with expanded outreach and support for pregnant women and new mothers.

Lori highlighted a USCCB program called Walking With Moms in Need, saying the church should redouble its efforts “to accompany women and couples who are facing unexpected or difficult pregnancies, and during the early years of parenthood.”

The bishops conference has designated the “threat of abortion” as its preeminent priority – a viewpoint that many lay Catholics don't share. According to Pew Research Center surveys, 56% of U.S. Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Professor O. Carter Snead, who teaches law and political science at the University of Notre Dame, said via email that most Catholics engaging in anti-abortion activism “are not hard political partisans but rather people seeking to care for moms and babies by whatever means are available.”

As an example, Snead cited Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture – which he directs – and one of its initiatives, called “Women and Children First: Imagining a Post-Roe World.” Through teaching, research and public engagement, the initiative seeks to strengthen support for “women, children (born and unborn), and families in need.”

However, achieving broad bipartisan collaboration on such initiatives may not come soon, Snead acknowledged.

“It is true, regrettably, that the only political party that has been willing to partner to provide legal protection for the unborn is the Republicans,” he said.

Chad Pecknold, a theology professor at The Catholic University of America, also doubted there could be a post-Roe surge of bipartisanship on abortion.

“So long as Democrats insist on abortion for all nine months of a pregnancy, and as long as Republicans recognize that abortion runs contrary to the 14th Amendment, this will remain a partisan issue,” he said via email.

“But the goal of the pro-life movement has never been partisan,” Pecknold added. “The goal is justice for pre-born persons who have a right to live, to be loved, to be raised in a family.”

Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas – an outspoken critic of Catholic politicians who support abortion rights — said abortion opponents “must continue to provide support and care for the mothers who find themselves in difficult situations.”

“I pray that we may move to a place where mother and child are both held as sacred and society supports both lives in every way possible,” he said via email.

David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, questioned the significance of recent promises by Catholic bishops and other anti-abortion leaders to boost support for unwed mothers.

“Can this movement that is so tied to the Republican Party and the conservative movement suddenly pivot to mobilizing its people for socially liberal policies?” Gibson asked, referring to programs such as subsidized child care and paid maternity leaves.

Steven Millies, a professor of public theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, says the bishops bear partial responsibility for the entrenched polarization over abortion, which he expects to continue even if Roe is overturned.

“It’s unrealistically hopeful to think that the habits of division will be abandoned,” said Millies, suggesting that the bishops could have done more to reduce abortions over the years by pressing hard for stronger, better-funded social programs.

Rebecca Bratten Weiss, a writer and the digital editor of U.S. Catholic magazine, said she no longer labels herself “pro-life” — though she was active in that movement for many years and believes all life is worthy of protection.

“The people who are working to overturn Roe have made it quite clear they have zero interest in expanding safety nets,” she said. “They either haven't thought through the consequences, or they are OK with the consequences — a higher rate of infant mortality, more women seeking unsafe abortions, more families driven to desperate measures.”

Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest who writes for Religion News Service, suggested in a column that reversal of Roe should be an occasion for reassessment by the many bishops who embraced the Republican Party because of its anti-abortion stance.

“Catholic bishops will celebrate this victory for which they have worked for decades, but ironically it should lead to a divorce between the bishops and Republicans,” Reese wrote. “The GOP has nothing else to offer them. In fact, except for abortion, its proposals are the opposite of Catholic social teaching.”

Assuming Roe is overturned, Reese added, “the bishops can declare victory on abortion and turn their focus to social programs ... that help women have and raise children so they are not forced to have abortions. ”

Yet Reese doubts this will happen.

“My guess is they will continue to fight as long as there is no consensus in America on abortion,” he wrote. “This will mean sticking with the Republicans and sacrificing all their other priorities.”

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The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years in a decision by its conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade. Friday's outcome is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.

The decision, unthinkable just a few years ago, was the culmination of decades of efforts by abortion opponents, made possible by an emboldened right side of the court that has been fortified by three appointees of former President Donald Trump.

The ruling came more than a month after the stunning leak of a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito indicating the court was prepared to take this momentous step.

It puts the court at odds with a majority of Americans who favored preserving Roe, according to opinion polls.

Alito, in the final opinion issued Friday, wrote that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed the right to abortion, were wrong the day they were decided and must be overturned.

Authority to regulate abortion rests with the political branches, not the courts, Alito wrote.

Joining Alito were Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The latter three justices are Trump appointees. Thomas first voted to overrule Roe 30 years ago.

Chief Justice John Roberts would have stopped short of ending the abortion right, noting that he would have upheld the Mississippi law at the heart of the case, a ban on abortion after 15 weeks, and said no more.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — the diminished liberal wing of the court — were in dissent.

The ruling is expected to disproportionately affect minority women who already face limited access to health care, according to statistics analyzed by The Associated Press.

Thirteen states, mainly in the South and Midwest, already have laws on the books that ban abortion in the event Roe is overturned. Another half-dozen states have near-total bans or prohibitions after 6 weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

In roughly a half-dozen other states, the fight will be over dormant abortion bans that were enacted before Roe was decided in 1973 or new proposals to sharply limit when abortions can be performed, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

More than 90% of abortions take place in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, and more than half are now done with pills, not surgery, according to data compiled by Guttmacher.

The decision came against a backdrop of public opinion surveys that find a majority of Americans oppose overturning Roe and handing the question of whether to permit abortion entirely to the states. Polls conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and others also have consistently shown about 1 in 10 Americans want abortion to be illegal in all cases. A majority are in favor of abortion being legal in all or most circumstances, but polls indicate many also support restrictions especially later in pregnancy.

The Biden administration and other defenders of abortion rights have warned that a decision overturning Roe also would threaten other high court decisions in favor of gay rights and even potentially, contraception.

But Alito wrote in his draft opinion that his analysis addresses abortion only, not other rights that also stem from a right to privacy that the high court has found implicit, though not directly stated, in the Constitution. Abortion is different, Alito wrote, because of the unique moral question it poses.

Whatever the intentions of the person who leaked Alito's draft opinion, the conservatives held firm in overturning Roe and Casey.

In his draft, Alito dismissed the arguments in favor of retaining the two decisions, including that multiple generations of American women have partly relied on the right to abortion to gain economic and political power.

Changing the composition of the court has been central to the anti-abortion side's strategy. Mississippi and its allies made increasingly aggressive arguments as the case developed, and two high-court defenders of abortion rights retired or died. The state initially argued that its law could be upheld without overruling the court's abortion precedents.

Then-Gov. Phil Bryant signed the 15-week measure into law in March 2018, when Justices Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were still members of a five-justice majority that was mainly protective of abortion rights.

By early summer, Kennedy had retired and was replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh a few months later. The Mississippi law was blocked in lower federal courts.

But the state always was headed to the nation's highest court. It did not even ask for a hearing before a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ultimately held the law invalid in December 2019.

By early September 2020, the Supreme Court was ready to consider the state's appeal.

The court scheduled the case for consideration at the justices' private conference on Sept. 29. But in the intervening weeks, Ginsburg died and Barrett was quickly nominated and confirmed without a single Democratic vote.

The stage now was set, although it took the court another half year to agree to hear the case.

By the time Mississippi filed its main written argument with the court in the summer, the thrust of its argument had changed and it was now calling for the wholesale overruling of Roe and Casey.

The first sign that the court might be receptive to wiping away the constitutional right to abortion came in late summer, when the justices divided 5-4 in allowing Texas to enforce a ban on the procedure at roughly six weeks, before some women even know they are pregnant. That dispute turned on the unique structure of the law, including its enforcement by private citizens rather than by state officials, and how it can be challenged in court.

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in a searing dissent for the three liberal justices that their conservative colleagues refused to block "a flagrantly unconstitutional law" that "flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents." Roberts was also among the dissenters.

Then in December, after hearing additional arguments over whether to block the Texas law known as S.B. 8, the court again declined to do so, also by a 5-4 vote. "The clear purpose and actual effect of S. B. 8 has been to nullify this Court's rulings," Roberts wrote, in a partial dissent.

In their Senate hearings, Trump's three high-court picks carefully skirted questions about how they would vote in any cases, including about abortion.

But even as Democrats and abortion rights supporters predicted Kavanaugh and Gorsuch would vote to upend abortion rights if confirmed, the two left at least one Republican senator with a different impression. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine predicted Gorsuch and Kavanaugh wouldn't support overturning the abortion cases, based on private conversations she had with them when they were nominees to the Supreme Court.

Barrett was perhaps the most vocal opponent of abortion in her time as a law professor, before becoming a federal judge in 2017. She was a member of anti-abortion groups at Notre Dame University, where she taught law, and she signed a newspaper ad opposing "abortion on demand" and defending "the right to life from fertilization to natural death." She promised to set aside her personal views when judging cases.

Trump, meanwhile, had predicted as a candidate that whoever he named to the court would "automatically" vote to overrule Roe.

Protests have broken out across the country in response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to an abortion. Twenty-six states are expected to ban or severely restrict abortion rights as a result.

The first protests started in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington D.C., where demonstrators on both sides of the issue have been largely present since the leaked draft opinion of the Supreme Court's intentions to overturn the landmark case was reported by Politico in early May.

Protests have also started to form in almost every major city around the country, and they are expected to continue to grow throughout the day and into the night.

Washington D.C.

Police in the nation’s capital are bringing in additional officers and mobilizing in anticipation of the protests growing outside the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I can’t believe it’s real,” Lauren Marlowe, 22, an anti-abortion demonstrator, said to The Washington Post. Marlowe shrieked and embraced her friends when the decision came down. “I just want to hug everyone. … We’re in a post-Roe America now.”

Tanya Matthews, a 26-year-old masters student from Charleston, South Carolina, also spoke to The Washington Post, telling them she had an abortion at 19, supports abortion rights and was dismayed by the celebratory crowd of anti-abortion activists.

“It feels like we’re at a Justin Bieber concert,” Matthews said. “They don’t understand the gravity of this decision. Just because it’s not legal doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen.”

It was also being reported that traffic on Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, just a few miles away from the Supreme Court, was shut down in the morning due to a demonstrator who climbed to the top of a 70-foot-tall archway, displaying a flag or a banner reading: “Don’t tread on my uterus.”

Protests have also started to form in almost every major city around the country, and they are expected to continue to grow throughout the day and into the night.

Boston, Massachusetts

Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of downtown Boston Friday evening, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The abortion-rights advocates blocked traffic and in some cases were sitting in intersections between Boston Common and Copley Square.

Video below: Downtown Boston protest following SCOTUS abortion

The protesters were calling for abortion rights for women and reproductive rights for people, according to sister station WCVB.

Louisville, Kentucky

An abortion rights rally is underway at the federal courthouse in downtown Louisville.

It started at 4:30 p.m. with several people gathering in opposition to Friday's Supreme Court ruling. They started marching just before 6 p.m.

Video below: Abortion rights rally outside Louisville's federal courthouse

Roe v. Wade has been in place for nearly 50 years, protecting abortion rights. Overturning it now puts abortion laws in the hands of the states.

For Kentucky, that meant an immediate ban on abortions because the state has had a "trigger law" in place since 2019. That law guaranteed that if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned, abortions would abruptly become illegal.

Madison, Wisconsin

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, dozens of people took to Capitol Square in Madison — some in celebration and others in protest.

There's one word that reporters from sister station WISN said they heard over and over again when they asked protesters why they were there: anger.

But there is a small minority who are also there celebrating the news.

Within minutes of the ruling being announced, protestor Jessica Warwick went out to buy poster board and a marker, and then went straight to the Capitol.

Video below: Protesters gather at Wisconsin's Capitol after U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade

"Right now, the only power that a lot of us have is to stop working. Don't do it. Withhold your labor. Because this is — because what's going on right now is wrong. It's wrong," Warwick said.

As the day went on, the numbers gathered on the Capitol steps grew.

"My anger was so overwhelming I felt that I needed to do something, and this was all I could do at the moment," protester Donna Volk said.

Manchester, New Hampshire

The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate Roe v. Wade and overturn the constitutional right to abortion drew strong reactions in New Hampshire from people on both sides of the issue.

Outside the state Supreme Court, a large crowd of supporters of abortion rights gathered to speak out against the decision and call for abortion to remain accessible in the Granite State.

"I think this is going to be painful and dangerous and everyone is going to suffer," said one woman at the rally, who said she remembers what it was like 50 years ago, before Roe v. Wade. "This is a big mistake, and I think there are going to be political repercussions all the way down the line."

Devon Chaffee, of the ACLU of New Hampshire, said the legal implications of the Supreme Court decision will likely be sorted out in the coming months and years. But in dozens of states across the country, pregnant people are already being faced with new challenges.

Video below: Rallies held after US Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade

In New Hampshire, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks.

"So, if people want to access an abortion, they can," Chaffee said. "If they have an appointment, they should keep it."

"We've been preparing for this moment for years," said Kayla Montgomery, of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.

Opponents of abortion rights said Friday was a day for celebration and something they have been waiting for for 49 years. Jason Hennessey, of New Hampshire Right to Life, said the decision is a cause for relief and joy.

"In New Hampshire, this has actually been a year of jubilee," he said. "We have the first protections for the unborn in years that came into effect in January, and now this, in the 49th year of Roe v. Wade, New Hampshire is now free to protect the life and liberty of all its citizens."

Some lawmakers said the decision opens the door to changes in the law, though nothing changes immediately in New Hampshire in the wake of the decision.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Hundreds of people have gathered in downtown Pittsburgh at a rally for abortion rights, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The event is being held outside the City-County Building on Grant Street.

Speakers include Mayor Ed Gainey and state Rep. Summer Lee, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District.

People who support the Supreme Court decision are also in the crowd.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

An abortion rights rally is underway in Lancaster.

The event that started at 6 p.m. at Musser Park is being hosted by Lancaster Stands Up, Planned Parenthood Keystone and YWCA Lancaster.

It comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade.

Video below: Abortion rights rally held in Lancaster

The Department of Homeland Security intelligence branch is warning law enforcement, first responders and private sector partners nationwide Friday of potential domestic violence extremist activity in response to the Supreme Court's decision on abortion, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

The memo from the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis says federal and state government officials, including judges, "probably are most at risk for violence in response to the decision."

It also includes warnings about "First Amendment protected events," reproductive and "family advocacy health care facilities," and faith-based organizations being targets for violence or criminal incidents.

"Americans' freedom of speech and right to peacefully protest are fundamental Constitutional rights. Those rights do not extend to violence and other illegal activity. DHS will continue working with our partners across every level of government to share timely information and to support law enforcement efforts to keep our communities safe," a Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN in a statement.

DHS previously released a National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin warning of potential violence surrounding the Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights.

The memo notes that potential violence is expected "for weeks" following Friday's decision given that domestic violent extremists "may be mobilized to respond to changes in state laws and ballot measures" related to abortion. The assessment, DHS said in the memo, is based on an increase in violent incidents after a draft was leaked last month.

Some of those earlier incidents are cited throughout the memo, including arson attacks targeting pregnancy resource centers and incidents of vandalism threatening violence targeting "religious facilities perceived as being opposed to abortion."

The DHS intelligence arm relied on a variety of sources, including news media accounts, open source reporting and Justice Department press releases, for its assessment.

CINCINNATI —

Emotions are high across Greater Cincinnati and the rest of the country as reactions to the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic overturn of Roe v. Wade settles in.

A divided court voted 5-4 to overturn the case, ending the national legalization of abortion that has been in place in the U.S. for nearly 50 years.

The 1973 Roe v. Wade court decision affirmed the right to receive an abortion under the 14th Amendment, ruling that abortions were constitutionally protected up until about 23 weeks when a fetus could be able to live outside the womb.

Protesters hit the streets Friday to voice their opinions on the landmark decision.

WATCH: Pro-choice supporters protest decision overturning Roe v. Wade

Many held up signs, while others like Sarah Bloomer, held anger in their heart.

“I felt like I was punched in the gut. I felt disbelief. I thought we've come so far why is this a priority right now?” expressed protester Sarah Bloomer.

Other protesters expressed fears that the overturning the landmark decision was only the beginning.

"People aren't going to be able to get the healthcare they need. This is probably going to lead to attacks on other things like gay marriage or access to birth control,” said protester Kristen Silva.

However, not all protesters feel rage, some are rejoicing in a decision they have long been advocating for.

WATCH: Pro-life supporters praise decision overturning Roe v. Wade

“We will be a better world with more babies born,” Cincinnati Right to Life Executive Director, Laura Strietmann said.

Strietmann said the work is still not done.

The fight is going to continue on it's just going to be a different fight,” she said.

Pro-life groups are gearing up to pressure the state to pass the most restrictive laws possible.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision Friday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed an emergency motion in federal court to dissolve "The Heartbeat Bill" injunction.

Later Friday evening, a federal judge approved Yost's motion and dissolved the injunction.

The move effectively bans abortions after approximately six weeks of pregnancy across the state.

Yost tweeted "The Heartbeat Bill is now the law” after the decision was announced.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine released a televised statement asking "Ohioan's to work together in the months moving forward."

The ACLU of Ohio sent out a statement following the decision, saying it plans to fight for women's access to medical services.

"I see one group of people insisting that they have rights to hold weapons not to be taken away but they're okay and stand by when our rights are taken away. I’m not okay with it,” Bloomer said.

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An off-duty Rhode Island police officer has been charged for allegedly punching his political rival at an abortion protest on Friday.

The Associated Press reported that Jeann Lugo, who was running as a Republican for state senate, is accused of punching Democratic state senate candidate Jennifer Rourke in the face twice.

Rourke told the AP that she was trying to escort a counterprotester who agreed to leave away from the Rhode Island State House in Providence when she was punched in the face during another physical altercation that broke out.

The news outlet reported that Rhode Island State Police said the 35-year-old Providence officer turned himself in Saturday and was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct.

He's also been placed on administrative leave.

Afterward, he announced he was ending his campaign.

Police told the news outlet that Lugo was arraigned and released.

He's due in court on July 8.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KSHB) — Lyon Lenk doesn’t take priceless things for granted.

“You have to give it some serious thought,” he said. “We just want the basics, to have this yard and a choice in how our lives look like.”

One of those priceless moments is when he proposed to his fiancee with a family diamond smuggled from Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation.

“We got engaged at the beginning of the pandemic because there’s just no one else I want to do this life thing with,” he said. “Kelsey is everything to me. I’ve never met a kinder, beautiful person.”

Following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Lenk decided to get a vasectomy due to his wife's medical history.

“We’ve talked about me getting a vasectomy,” he said. “I’ve got to contemplate what could potentially be a lifesaving procedure for the person I love the most.”

Dr. Christian Hettinger, a urologist at the Kansas City Urology Care, said they have been inundated with requests for information about vasectomies.

“Since Friday, we’re up 900% in people looking to get a vasectomy," he said.

The demand for vasectomy consults is drastically increasing across both Missouri and Kansas.

Hettinger gave an example from just a single clinic’s calls for consults over the weekend.

“Typically, it’s about three phone calls over a weekend," he said. "Over this past weekend, it was 50 calls looking for vasectomies."

Hettinger says he will tell his patients the same thing.

“It should be viewed as a permanent form of sterilization, it’s not something that’s a good temporary fix if you will,” he said. “It’s not something I would plan to have done and then reversed in the future.”

Lenk cautioned that a lot of consideration should go into the decision.

"It’s not right for everybody," he said. "Either I get this, or we risk her being denied a procedure down the line and that’s unacceptable to me, so it’s not a sacrifice, it’s the right thing to do.”

This story was originally reported by Megan Abundis on KSHB.com.

Cecilia Otero an Oklahoma resident, is asking herself a lot of questions these days.

"Plan B, do I need to go and buy like, you know, a few to have on hand just in case? There's also the Plan C pill, and I'm just like, living in Oklahoma. I'm just like, well, how do I access that? And I don't know, like, my options feel very dwindled," Otero said.

At just shy of 32, she's made the call that she doesn’t want to have children. But in her home state of Oklahoma, she knows that should she get pregnant — she'd have some tough decisions to make.

"I feel like I don't have that right to choose anymore," Otero said.

And — she really doesn’t. Just about two months ago, Republican Governor Kevin Stitt signed a total abortion ban into law, enforced by civil lawsuits similar to the 2021 law upheld in Texas. It was just the latest in a string of anti-abortion bills in the state, but it’s the one that took care to a screeching halt.

Tamya Cox-Toure is the Executive Director at ACLU Oklahoma.

"Because of the fear of being sued with a $10,000 balance sheet, providers took the necessary steps in Oklahoma and stopped care on Friday when it went into effect," Cox-Toure said.

Abortion care facilities have been sitting vacant for more than a month — and even abortion care funds have been put on pause while lawyers figure out the legalities of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.

"We have no idea what assist means. So people who may donate to our abortion fund, could they be in violation of these laws? People who help someone go to a state where abortion is legal, are they now in violation?" Cox-Toure said.

Oklahoma’s Attorney General John O’Connor on Friday that he believes the law is clear.

"I would say if you put up a billboard or if you advertise that that you're going to provide abortions in Oklahoma or in another state, that you're soliciting an abortion. So law enforcement is now activated with respect to any efforts to aid, abet, or solicit abortions," O’Connor said.

There are currently a handful of challenges in front of the state supreme court — dating back to 2017. But for now, their eyes are on Kansas — the only nearby state that permits abortion. But voters will weigh in there on a ballot initiative in August that could end that safe haven.

"We would be very much the, you know, abortion access desert because of where we are," Cox-Toure said.

Should it be successful — there may be an effort for a ballot initiative here, too. After all — a recent poll showed more than half of Oklahomans did not want to see a total ban.

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A pregnant Texas woman who received a ticket for driving in the HOV lane in June now claims she has received another ticket for the same offense by the same sheriff's deputy.

According to The Dallas Morning Newspaper, Brandy Bottone was pulled over by a Dallas County Sheriff's deputy on June 29 for driving alone in the carpool lane, which requires drivers to have at least two people in the car to use.

Bottone claimed she told the deputy that she had the right to use the HOV lane because her unborn child counted as a passenger since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Texas penal code recognizes an unborn child as a person, NBC News reported.

Despite her argument, Bottone received a ticket. She appealed, and it was later dismissed, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office confirmed to the newspaper and NBC News.

Now, Bottone said in early August she received yet another ticket for the same offense by the same sheriff's deputy.

Bottone told the "Today" show on Wednesday that the deputy knew exactly who she was.

"Hello, I know you," she quoted the deputy as saying.

Bottone told The Dallas Morning News on Sunday that the deputy then asked her when she going to have her baby, to which she replied, "Tomorrow."

She told the news outlets that he ended up giving her a ticket.

The Dallas County District Attorney's Office told the news outlets that the "second citation is currently pending."

According to the newspaper, Bottone has since given birth to a girl.

Overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating affirmative action in higher education had been leading goals of the conservative legal movement for decades.

In a span of 370 days, a Supreme Court reshaped by three justices nominated by President Donald Trump made both a reality.

Last June, the court ended nationwide protections for abortion rights. This past week, the court’s conservative majority decided that race-conscious admissions programs at the oldest private and public colleges in the country, Harvard and the University of North Carolina, were unlawful.

Precedents that had stood since the 1970s were overturned, explicitly in the case of abortion and effectively in the affirmative action context.

“That is what is notable about this court. It’s making huge changes in highly salient areas in a very short period of time,” said Tara Leigh Grove, a law professor at the University of Texas.

As ethical questions swirled around the court and public trust in the institution had already dipped to a 50-year low, there were other consequential decisions in which the six conservatives prevailed.

They rejected the Biden administration's $400 billion student loan forgiveness program and held that a Christian graphic artist can refuse on free speech grounds to design websites for same-sex couples, despite a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and other characteristics.

The court, by a 5-4 vote, also sharply limited the federal government's authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands, although all nine justices rejected the administration's position.

Affirmative action was arguably the biggest constitutional decision of the year, and it showcased fiercely opposing opinions from the court's two Black justices, Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

They offered sharply contrasting takes on affirmative action. Thomas was in the majority to end it. Jackson, in her first year on the court, was in dissent.

The past year also had a number of notable surprises.

Differing coalitions of conservative and liberal justices ruled in favor of Black voters in an Alabama redistricting case and refused to embrace broad arguments in a North Carolina redistricting case that could have left state legislatures unchecked and dramatically altered elections for Congress and president.

The court also ruled for the Biden administration in a fight over deportation priorities and left in place the Indian Child Welfare Act, the federal law aimed at keeping Native American children with Native families.

Those cases reflected the control that Chief Justice John Roberts asserted, or perhaps reasserted, over the court following a year in which the other five conservatives moved more quickly than he wanted in some areas, including abortion.

Roberts wrote a disproportionate share of the term's biggest cases: conservative outcomes on affirmative action and the student loan plan, and liberal victories in Alabama and North Carolina.

The Alabama case may have been the most surprising because Roberts had consistently sought to narrow the landmark Voting Rights Act since his days as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration. As chief justice, he wrote the decision 10 years ago that gutted a key provision of the law.

But in the Alabama case and elsewhere, Roberts was part of majorities that rejected the most aggressive legal arguments put forth by Republican elected officials and conservative legal advocates.

The mixed bag of decisions almost seemed designed to counter arguments about the court's legitimacy, raised by Democratic and liberal critics — and some justices — in response to last year's abortion ruling, among others. The narrative was amplified by published reports of undisclosed, paid jet travel and fancy trips for Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito from billionaire Republican donors.

“I don’t think the court consciously takes opinion into account,” Grove said. “But I think if there’s anyone who might consciously think about these issues, it’s the institutionalist, the chief justice. He’s been extremely concerned about the attacks on the Supreme Court.”

On the term's final day, Roberts urged the public to not mistake disagreement among the justices for disparagement of the court. “Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country,” he wrote in the student loans case in response to a stinging dissent by Justice Elena Kagan.

Roberts has resisted instituting a code of ethics for the court and has questioned whether Congress has the authority to impose one. Still, he has said, without providing specifics, that the justices would do more to show they adhere to high ethical standards.

Some conservative law professors rejected the idea that the court bowed to outside pressures, consciously or otherwise.

“There were a lot of external atmospherics that really could have affected court business, but didn't,” said Jennifer Mascott, a George Mason University law professor.

Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, pointed to roughly equal numbers of major decisions that could be characterized as politically liberal or conservative.

Levey said conservatives “were not disappointed by this term.” Democrats and their allies “warned the nation about an ideologically extreme Supreme Court but wound up cheering as many major decisions as they decried,” Levey wrote in an email.

But some liberal critics were not mollified.

Brian Fallon, director of the court reform group Demand Justice, called the past year “another disastrous Supreme Court term” and mocked experts who “squint to find so-called silver linings in the Court’s decisions to suggest all is not lost, or they will emphasize one or two so-called moderate decisions from the term to suggest the Court is not as extreme as we think and can still be persuaded from time to time.”

Biden himself said on MSNBC on Thursday that the current court has “done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history.” He cited as examples the overturning of abortion protections and other decisions that had been precedent for decades.

Still, Biden said, he thought some on the high court “are beginning to realize their legitimacy is being questioned in ways it hasn’t been questioned in the past.”

The justices are now embarking on a long summer break. They return to the bench on the first Monday in October for a term that so far appears to lack the blockbuster cases that made the past two terms so momentous.

The court will examine the legal fallout from last year's major expansion of gun rights, in a case over a domestic violence gun ban that was struck down by a lower court.

A new legal battle over abortion also could make its way to the court in coming months. In April, the court preserved access to mifepristone, a drug used in the most common method of abortion, while a lawsuit over it makes its way through federal court.

The conservative majority also will have opportunities to further constrain federal regulatory agencies, including a case that asks them to overturn the so-called Chevron decision that defers to regulators when they seek to give effect to big-picture, sometimes vague, laws written by Congress. The 1984 decision has been cited by judges more than 15,000 times.

Just seven years ago, months before Trump's surprising presidential victory, then-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflected on the term that had just ended and made two predictions. One was way off base and the other was strikingly accurate.

In July 2016, the court had just ended a term in which the justices upheld a University of Texas affirmative action plan and struck down state restrictions on abortion clinics.

Her first prediction was that those issues would not soon return to the high court. Her second was that if Trump became president, “everything is up for grabs.”

Ginsburg's death in 2020 allowed Trump to put Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the court and cement conservative control.

Commenting on the student loan decision, liberal legal scholar Melissa Murray wrote on Twitter that Biden's plan “was absolutely undone by the Court that his predecessor built.”

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Ohio's abortion landscape has changed dramatically — with a new amendment on the horizon.

Thousands gathered at the Ohio Statehouse on June 24, 2022 through the weekend to protest the Dobbs ruling, while others gathered in celebration.

"This Roe v. Wade decision has again been something that has reversed course on decades of precedent, sending us backward," U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH) told News 5.

Congresswoman Brown is working in D.C. to try to enshrine abortion access into law, but said right now, the important fight is on the ground in Ohio.

State Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland) has agreed, but from the other perspective.

"The time has come for Ohio to truly stand up for the rights of the unborn," Schmidt said in bill testimony from 2022.

What is the current law in Ohio?

Abortion is legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancy — or from the last menstrual period.

However, this has been a growing political fight for the past decade.

2019

Republican lawmakers passed the six-week abortion ban, which had no rape or incest exceptions.

This was a step in the right direction for many anti-abortion advocates. But some, like Austin Beigel, want it to go further.

"We are looking for the full abolition of abortion legally to protect all human life from conception to natural death," Beigel said.

This law was blocked by a federal judge a few months later.

2022

When Roe fell in 2022, Ohio reinstated the six-week ban. Pro-abortion rights groups sued, and months later, a state judge indefinitely blocked the law from going into place, citing infringement of privacy.

Now, the case is set to be heard by the Ohio Supreme Court, which is GOP-led. This is what got the ACLU's Gary Daniels and abortion rights advocates moving.

"Get reproductive rights on the November ballot so that Ohioans can decide this for themselves without the help of politicians," Daniels said.

2023

Ohioans will likely get to choose this November if abortion should be legally protected in the state constitution. Supporters should be finishing up gathering signatures this week.

RELATED: Advocates on each side get ready for possible vote to legalize abortion in Ohio

The direct language of the abortion rights amendment, and the portion that the ads focus on, states: “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.”

Nearly 60% of Ohioans would support this language, according to a Scripps News/YouGov poll.

Republicans in the state had a trick up their sleeve, though. They snuck in an August election, despite banning them a few months prior, to take place on Issue 1.

Issue 1 would raise the threshold for a constitutional amendment to pass from a simple majority, or 50% plus one, to 60%.

"That 10% difference might be how we protect these babies," Beigel said.

Issue 1 doesn't just apply to abortion, which is why hundreds of bipartisan and nonpartisan groups are against it.

"Issue One is an attempt to silence the voice of voters in Ohio," Rep. Brown said. "We must do everything to stop it."

The GOP has admitted it was timed to make the abortion amendment harder to pass in November.

To read more about Issue 1 and abortion, click or tap here.

Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.

Activists and politicians are marking the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned a nationwide right to abortion with praise from some and protests from others.

Advocates on both sides marched at rallies Saturday in Washington and across the country to call attention to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling on June 24, 2022, which upended the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

“I’m absolutely livid that people think that they can interfere with medical decisions between a woman and her doctor,” said Lynn Rust, of Silver Springs, Maryland, at a Women's March rally in Washington.

In Chicago, dueling rallies gathered on opposite sides of a street outside a downtown federal building. There was shouting but no reports of clashes.

“The elected officials in Illinois are trying to turn us into the abortion capital of the middle of the country,” Peter Breen, vice president of the conservative Thomas More Society, told the Chicago Tribune.

Andy Thayer of the Gay Liberation Network said people in Illinois who are pro-abortion rights can't be complacent because conservative judges have been appointed to key court positions.

“That’s why we have to be in the streets,” he said.

The Dobbs decision made abortion an unavoidable campaign issue and deepened policy differences between the states.

Most Republican-controlled states have imposed bans, including 14 where laws in effect now block most abortions in every stage of pregnancy, with varying exceptions for the life and health of the women and for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Most Democrat-led states have taken steps to protect abortion access, particularly by seeking to protect doctors and others from prosecution for violating other states’ abortion bans.

The issue is far from settled, as demonstrated by Saturday's rallies as well as the past year's battles that have played out in courtrooms, on ballots, and in state legislatures.

Judges are still weighing whether the bans and restrictions in several states comply with state constitutions. As soon as this fall, more voters could decide directly on abortion-related policies; last year, they sided with abortion rights in all six states with measures on the ballot. And the issue will be on the ballot in elections this year and next.

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about the impact of the Dobbs ruling in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“We knew this decision would create a healthcare crisis in America,” she said, pointing to women who were initially denied abortion access even during miscarriages because hospitals were concerned about legal fallout.

The laws restricting abortion “in design and effect have created chaos, confusion, and fear,” Harris said.

While there's far from a universal consensus among voters, public opinion polls have consistently found that the majority oppose the most restrictive bans but also oppose unchecked abortion access at all stages of pregnancy.

Biden has pushed for a national law to reinstate abortion access. Republicans have called for a national ban. This week, former Vice President Mike Pence, who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, is calling for his party's presidential candidates to join him in backing a ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

But with Democrats controlling the presidency and U.S. Senate and Republicans holding the House, no federal change is imminent.

Nikki Haley, another GOP presidential candidate and former ambassador to the United Nations, said she backs a federal ban but it doesn't have enough support to advance. Speaking at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington, Haley said both parties should instead look to goals such as limiting abortion later in pregnancy. Only a half-dozen states allow abortion at any point in pregnancy, and abortions after 21 weeks or so are very rare.

“We need to make sure that our country stops demonizing this issue and we humanize this issue,” Haley said. “This is personal for everyone.”

These policies have vast practical implications.

In states with the deepest bans, the number of abortions has plummeted to nearly zero. There have been more abortions in states where access has been maintained — especially those closest to those with bans, as women travel for care they used to be able to get closer to home.

“I can’t tell you how many people arrive at the clinic utterly exhausted after driving all night from Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana,” said Amy Bryant, a doctor who provides abortions at a clinic in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

There's also been a rise in use of networks that distribute abortion pills.

But because of lags and gaps in official reporting — and because some of the pill use goes unreported, the impact on the total number of abortions in the U.S. is not clear.

And while abortions have continued, advocates say there's an equity problem: Black women and lower-income women especially, they say, are those who were expected to lose access.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Republicans in the Florida House of Representatives have approved a ban on abortions after 15 weeks, moving to tighten access to the procedure ahead of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could limit abortion rights in America.

The GOP-controlled House early Thursday passed the 15-week abortion ban after hours of debate between Democrats who said the measure would impose an unnecessary burden on pregnant women and Republicans who said they were protecting the unborn.

According to The Associated Press, the bill contains exceptions if the procedure would save a mother’s life, prevent serious injury to the mother or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality.

The bill now moves to the Republican-controlled Senate. Gov. Ron DeSantis has signaled that he would sign the bill into law if it passed the Senate.

Republicans in several state legislatures are moving to place new restrictions on abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court signaled it would uphold a Mississippi law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks and potentially overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Sarah Weddington, a Texas lawyer who as a 26-year-old successfully argued the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court, died Sunday. She was 76.

Susan Hays, Weddington’s former student and colleague, said she died in her sleep early Sunday morning at her Austin home. Weddington had been in poor health for some time and it was not immediately clear what caused her death, Hays told The Associated Press.

Raised as a minister's daughter in the West Texas city of Abilene, Weddington attended law school at the University of Texas. A couple years after graduating, she and a former classmate, Linda Coffee, brought a class-action lawsuit on behalf of a pregnant woman challenging a state law that largely banned abortions.

The case of “Jane Roe,” whose real name was Norma McCorvey, was brought against Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade and eventually advanced to the Supreme Court.

Weddington argued the case before the high court twice, in December 1971 and again in October 1972, resulting the next year in the 7-2 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

Weddington’s death comes as the Supreme Court is considering a case over Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy that's widely considered to be the most serious challenge in years to the Roe decision.

While that case was before the court, Weddington also ran to represent Austin in the Texas House of Representatives. She was elected in 1972 and served three terms as a state lawmaker, before becoming general counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and later working as an advisor on women's issues to President Jimmy Carter.

Weddington later wrote a book on Roe v. Wade, gave lectures and taught courses at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Women’s University on leadership, law and gender discrimination. She remained active in the political and legal worlds well into her later years, attending the 2019 signing ceremony for a New York state law meant to safeguard abortion rights should Roe v. Wade be overturned.

WASHINGTON —

Related video above: US Catholic Church pushes back against politicians that are pro-choice

Both sides are telling the Supreme Court there's no middle ground in Wednesday's showdown over abortion. The justices can either reaffirm the constitutional right to an abortion or wipe it away altogether.

Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that declared a nationwide right to abortion, is facing its most serious challenge in 30 years in front of a court with a 6-3 conservative majority that has been remade by three appointees of President Donald Trump.

"There are no half measures here," said Sherif Girgis, a Notre Dame law professor who once served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel Alito.

A ruling that overturned Roe and the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey would lead to outright bans or severe restrictions on abortion in 26 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

The case being argued Wednesday comes from Mississippi, where a 2018 law would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, well before viability. The Supreme Court has never allowed states to ban abortion before the point at roughly 24 weeks when a fetus can survive outside the womb.

The justices are separately weighing disputes over Texas' much earlier abortion ban, at roughly six weeks, though those cases turn on the unique structure of the law and how it can be challenged in court, not the abortion right. Still, abortion rights advocates were troubled by the court's 5-4 vote in September to allow the Texas law, which relies on citizen lawsuits to enforce it, to take effect in the first place.

"This is the most worried I've ever been," said Shannon Brewer, who runs the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, the Jackson Women's Health Organization.

The clinic offers abortions up to 16 weeks of pregnancy and about 10% of abortions it performs take place after the 15th week, Brewer said.

She also noted that since the Texas law took effect, the clinic has seen a substantial increase in patients, operating five days or six days a week instead of two or three.

Lower courts blocked the Mississippi law, as they have other abortion bans that employ traditional enforcement methods by state and local officials.

The Supreme Court had never before even agreed to hear a case over a pre-viability abortion ban. But after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death last year and her replacement by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the third of Trump's appointees, the court said it would take up the case.

Trump had pledged to appoint "pro-life justices" and predicted they would lead the way in overturning the abortion rulings. Only one justice, Clarence Thomas, has publicly called for Roe to be overruled.

The court could uphold the Mississippi law without explicitly overruling Roe and Casey, an outcome that would satisfy neither side.

Abortion-rights advocates say that result would amount to the same thing as an outright ruling overturning the earlier cases because it would erase the rationale undergirding nearly a half-century of Supreme Court law.

"A decision upholding this ban is tantamount to overruling Roe. The ban prohibits abortion around two months before viability," said Julie Rikelman, who will argue the case for the clinic.

On the other side, abortion opponents argue that the court essentially invented abortion law in Roe and Casey, and shouldn't repeat that mistake in this case.

If the justices uphold Mississippi's law, they'll have to explain why, said Thomas Jipping, a Heritage Foundation legal fellow. They can either overrule the two big cases, Jipping said, "or they're going to have to come up with another made-up rule."

Conservative commentator Ed Whelan said such an outcome would be a "massive defeat" on par with the Casey decision in 1992, in which a court with eight justices appointed by Republican presidents unexpectedly reaffirmed Roe.

This court appears far more conservative than the one that decided Casey, and legal historian Mary Ziegler at Florida State University's law school, said the court probably would "overrule Roe or set us on a path to doing so."

Chief Justice John Roberts might find the more incremental approach appealing if he can persuade a majority of the court to go along. Since Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the court has moved in smaller steps on some issues, even when it appeared there was only a binary choice.

It took two cases for the court to rip out the heart of the federal Voting Rights Act that curbed potentially discriminatory voting laws in states with a history of discrimination.

In the area of organized labor, the court moved through a series of cases that chipped away at public sector unions' power.

The high court also heard two rounds of arguments over restrictions on independent spending in the political arena before removing limits on how much money corporations and unions can pour into election advocacy.

If the court looks to public sentiment, it would find poll after poll that shows support for preserving Roe, though some surveys also find backing for greater restrictions on abortion.

Mississippi is one of 12 states ready to act almost immediately if Roe is overturned. Those states have enacted so-called abortion trigger laws that would take effect and ban all or nearly all abortions.

Women in those states wanting abortions could face drives of hundreds of miles to reach the nearest clinic or they might obtain abortion pills by mail. Medication abortions now account for 40% of abortions.

Some legal briefs in the case make clear that the end of Roe is not the ultimate goal of abortion opponents.

The court should recognize that "unborn children are persons" under the Constitution's 14th Amendment, a conclusion that would compel an end to almost all legal abortions, Princeton professor Robert George and scholar John Finnis wrote. Finnis was Justice Neil Gorsuch's adviser on his Oxford dissertation, an argument against assisted suicide.

In May, the Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments from Mississippi's case, Dobbs v. Jackson's Women's Health Organization, in an attempt to ban abortion after 15 weeks.

This decision came around the same time Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the country's strictest ban on abortion into law, known as the Senate Bill-8. The law prohibits women from getting the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy or when cardiac activity is detected.

In a five-to-four decision, the Supreme Court declined to block the Texas ban, effectively changing the precedent of the 1973 landmark decision of Roe v. Wade that made abortion a constitutional right. The law forced many clinics to close and incentivizes individuals to enforce the ban by placing a $10,000 bounty on anyone who helps women get an abortion.

After the Supreme Court's ruling, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas to protect the constitutional rights of women.

Also, in early October, a federal judge issued an order to block the law, but Abbott immediately appealed the decision.

Similarly, Mississippi's only abortion clinic is in jeopardy. In the South and Midwest, where abortion is already difficult to access, if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will eliminate the procedure entirely.

In December, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether to uphold Mississippi's abortion restriction. The court generally releases the majority of its decisions in mid-June.

In this episode of Clarified, learn about how the 48-year precedent of Roe v. Wade is being challenged.

AUSTIN, Texas —

Most abortions in Texas are banned again after clinics that had raced to provide them during a two-day legal reprieve canceled appointments Saturday following a whiplash appeals court ruling.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a one-page order Friday night, reinstating a Texas law that prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks — and before some women know they’re pregnant.

Enforcement of the nation’s strictest abortion law is left up to private citizens who are deputized to file civil lawsuits against abortion providers, as well as others who help a woman obtain an abortion in Texas. Since taking effect in September, clinics in other states, including neighboring Louisiana and Oklahoma, have been inundated with patients from Texas.

Friday’s order from the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit is just the latest in the legal battle over the Texas law, known as Senate Bill 8. It came two days after a federal judge in Austin suspended the law, allowing providers to resume abortions.

Here are some questions and answers about the law and what’s next:

WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT?

Abortion providers say the ramifications have been punishing and “exactly what we feared.” Some women are being forced to carry pregnancies to term, they say, or waiting in hopes that courts will strike down the law.

More than 100 pages of court filings in September offered the most comprehensive glimpse at how the near-total ban on abortion in Texas has played out. Physicians and executives at Texas’ nearly two dozen abortion clinics described turning away hundreds of patients, and some who showed up for appointments could not proceed because cardiac activity had been detected.

One Planned Parenthood location in Houston normally performed about two dozen abortions daily, but in the 10 days after the law took effect, the clinic had done a total of 52.

Clinics in nearby states, meanwhile, say care for their own residents is being delayed to accommodate women making long trips from Texas. Doctors say recent patients from Texas have included rape victims, as the law makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

Whole Women’s Health has four clinics in Texas and was among providers that performed abortions in the state Thursday and Friday, after the lower court ruling allowed them. President and CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller said she didn’t have the number of abortions performed during the reprieve.

WHAT WAS THE LANDSCAPE IN TEXAS BEFORE?

More than 55,000 abortions were performed last year in Texas, which already had some of the nation's strictest abortion laws, including a ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion providers in Texas have experience when it comes to abruptly ramping up operations again. In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, abortions in Texas were all but banned for weeks under orders by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that postponed surgeries “not immediately medically necessary."

But providers were reporting staffing issues and worried some clinics would permanently shutter. A decade ago, Texas had more than 40 abortion clinics, but more than half of them closed for good during a protracted legal battle over a 2013 law that was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The Biden administration could bring the case back to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to quickly restore the federal judge's order that blocked the law.

The law has already made one trip to the Supreme Court. The justices voted 5-4 not to intervene to prevent it from taking effect, but they said further challenges were possible. With the Biden administration’s challenge underway, the law could return to the justices quickly.

The federal judge who suspended the law — Robert Pitman, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama — wrote in a blistering 113-page opinion that the law was an “offensive deprivation” of the constitutional right to an abortion.

Whether the Biden administration’s lawsuit — which calls it “clearly unconstitutional” — was likely to succeed was a factor in Pitman putting the law on hold.

Texas Right to Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group and a driver of the new law, has cheered the fact that it has stopped abortions every day that it has been in effect.

HOW ARE OTHER STATES RESPONDING?

After Texas' law went into effect, Republican lawmakers in at least half a dozen states said they would consider introducing similar bills, with the goal of enacting the kind of abortion crackdown they have sought for years. Those states include Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Meanwhile, two dozen state attorneys general, all Democrats, submitted a brief in the Biden administration’s lawsuit saying a substantial reduction of abortion access in one state would result in health care systems being burdened elsewhere.

The City Council in Portland, Oregon, briefly considered a boycott of Texas businesses because of the new law but instead decided to set aside $200,000 to fund reproductive care.

The growing anti-abortion campaign is intended to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Abortion opponents hope the conservative coalition assembled under President Donald Trump will end the constitutional right to abortion as established by the high court in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.