In states like Montana where courts have ruled that their constitutions’ explicit privacy rights extend to the right to have an abortion, the procedure would continue to be legal even if the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling is overturned.
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.