Abortion Policy

Report Outline
Special Focus

Overview

A low-income woman in Kentucky who is pregnant with a child she does not want may have to give birth because she cannot come up with several hundred dollars for an abortion. If she lived instead in nearby North Carolina, she could afford an abortion because the state would pay for it.

A teenager who wants an abortion in Massachusetts must first get permission from her parents or a judge. If she travels to neighboring. New Hampshire, no such consent is required.

Almost a decade and a half after the Supreme Court legalized abortion, the debate continues, Mostly, attention is focused on the Supreme Court, and whether is might overturn or modify Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that said women have a constitutional right to an abortion. But as the cases of the Kentucky woman and the Massachusetts teenager suggest, the nation's abortion policy may depend in the future as much on what is done in the states.