"The time has come": states are eager to limit abortion or protect it

On Wednesday morning, some 100 reproductive health care providers and advocates dispersed into the Illinois State Capitol to urge lawmakers to pass the reproductive health law, which would protect the right to abortion.

After visiting four offices, Dr. Erin King, Executive Director of the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, said it was important to preserve the right to abortion in Illinois because many states have restrictive laws and women go to clinics for treatment.

"Every time I go to bed and wake up, a new law in a state around us further restricts abortion or basically bans it," she said. "If you ever said it would happen a year ago, I would not have believed it."

This is not the first time that abortion activists believe Roe is about to be overthrown. When the Supreme Court considered the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, both sides of the issue were convinced that it would mean the end of federal protections against abortion. Instead, he asserted them, while opening the door to the possibility for each state to regulate at a later stage of the pregnancy.

But nearly 30 years later, the country's politics became more polarized. Before, some moderate Republicans supported abortion and some conservative Democrats opposed it. Now this political environment has practically disappeared.

Although similar legislation is emerging everywhere, every state has its own policy.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has promised to ban the fetal heartbeat for six weeks after a long period of relative calm on the abortion front in the state. The last major abortion law passed in that state dates back to 2012. But Kemp's November victory over Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, changed the game. A neglected candidate in the Republican primary, Mr. Kemp triumphed with all his strength: he promised to personally gather illegal immigrants in his truck and, what is very important, to sign a bill that prohibited the abortion after six weeks.

"He wanted to establish his conservative credentials and to do that, you have to check the abortion box," said Stacey Evans, Democrat and former member of the Georgia House, who had attended the Democratic Primary for governor last year. "And he did it."