If Roe Goes, States May Ban Cross-Border Abortions

If John McCain wins and puts conservatives on the Supreme Court, not only could Roe v. Wade go down—states may prohibit women from crossing state lines for abortions, Linda Hirshman writes in the Washington Post. Past rulings and Constitutional interpretations don't clearly support such laws, but times have changed since 1972, and many top legal minds "believe that this is something states probably can do," writes Hirshman.

Four states have already readied laws that will make abortions illegal if Roe v. Wade is overturned. "It seems a long way from McCain's bold statement that life begins at conception to police cars waiting on an abortion clinic side street in Granite City. But it's not," Hirshman writes. "If the law were to take this post-Roe course, Americans' lives would be determined by their state citizenship in ways unseen since the Civil War." (More abortion rights stories.)