Employers are watching closely as states shift their laws governing abortion. State officials and courts acted quickly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, allowing states to set their own abortion policies.
Over the next year, employers can expect many changes coming through new case law and new state legislation, so it's important to stay updated on the latest action in your state, experts said.
"We've very much entered an era where the law regarding abortion services will flip flop from administration to administration, Congress to Congress, state legislature to state legislature," said Ben Conley, an attorney with Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago, during a webcast for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Some of the changes won't happen right away. "Many state legislatures are not scheduled to reconvene for a couple months, but that doesn't mean they can't call a special session," Conley noted.
Looking to the near future, "it's expected that 26 states will have laws that will restrict or prohibit or limit abortion services. That's a lot," he added.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed that states can keep abortion legal within their borders, and states cannot ban reproductive services provided outside their borders.
Bans Take Effect
As of July 1, abortion is legal in 27 states and Washington, D.C., according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York City-based research and policy organization focused on reproductive health.
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