The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights thereby withdrawing the constitutional right in the U.S. to terminate a pregnancy yesterday on 24th June 2022.
Each US state will now become free to make its own abortion laws, and there is a great probability that the majority of them will opt to ban the procedure. There are numerous states that immediately restrict or ban abortion now that the ruling is overturned.
Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in bioethics and the law said, “If enough states prohibit this, there might be some places where it’s cheaper or easier to travel internationally to Mexico or Canada, in particular, than it is to travel to another state”.
U.S. Supreme Court Ends Constitutional Right to Abortion
Roe v. Wade judgment in 1973 gave U.S. women an absolute right to an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy and provided limited rights beyond the period.
Amid this whole controversy, search engine giant Google has witnessed a spike in internet queries like “Is abortion legal in Canada?” and “List of countries where abortion is illegal” etc this week.
“A lot of them just started breaking down crying. Can you imagine if you had driven 12 hours to receive this care in this state and you are not able to?” clinic owner Dalton Johnson said.
List of Countries where Abortion is Illegal
Below is the list of countries around the world where abortion is restricted completely according to the World Population Review.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, the following places “prohibit abortion altogether” but notes that “laws that make no explicit exception to save a woman’s life are normally interpreted to permit life-saving abortions on grounds of the general criminal law defense of ‘necessity.'”
| Country | Legality |
| Andorra | Prohibited altogether |
| Angola | Prohibited altogether |
| Dominican Republic | Prohibited altogether |
| DR Congo | Prohibited altogether |
| Egypt | Prohibited altogether |
| El Salvador | Prohibited altogether |
| Gabon | Prohibited altogether |
| Haiti | Prohibited altogether |
| Honduras | Prohibited altogether |
| Iraq | Prohibited altogether |
| Laos | Prohibited altogether |
| Madagascar | Prohibited altogether |
| Malta | Prohibited altogether |
| Marshall Islands | Prohibited altogether |
| Mauritania | Prohibited altogether |
| Micronesia | Prohibited altogether |
| Nicaragua | Prohibited altogether |
| Palau | Prohibited altogether |
| Philippines | Prohibited altogether |
| Republic of the Congo | Prohibited altogether |
| San Marino | Prohibited altogether |
| Sao Tome and Principe | Prohibited altogether |
| Senegal | Prohibited altogether |
| Suriname | Prohibited altogether |
| Tonga | Prohibited altogether |
However, there are many countries where abortions are only permitted under certain prevailing circumstances like rape, incest, fetal impairment, or consent of the spouse or elders.
Abortion laws are very different among countries and territories. They have evolved and changed over time. Several countries that allow abortion have a gestational time limit of 12-15 weeks for the procedure depending on the root cause of the issue.
There is a limit of up to 24 weeks for instances of rape, incest, or socioeconomic reasons among others.
South Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem announced with top state lawmakers saying, “As of today, all abortions are against the law unless there is an appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female”.
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