Introduction

The years since Dobbs have seen incremental gains in state courts, with some recognizing abortion rights under state constitutions that provide building blocks for further expansion, and reproductive freedom amendments opening new doors to strike down old laws. The limitations of litigation in restoring robust rights and access have also become apparent, with other state courts denying or overturning rights to abortion, and federal litigation necessarily focused on defending against egregious attacks on medication abortion that will likely reach the Supreme Court.

What’s next? States hostile to abortion are likely to renew their attacks on the ability to access legal abortion in another state, fueling a new wave of litigation that may test the limits of states’ ability to serve people in large tracts of the country living under abortion bans. Meanwhile, state courts retain the power to recognize robust reproductive autonomy rights and can overturn decisions erroneously denying rights in the face of overwhelming and growing evidence that abortion bans and restrictions harm life, health, liberty, and equality.

Legal battles over interstate access

Legal battles over interstate access

In a post-Dobbs landscape, millions of people depend on being able to access abortion in a state where it is legal. They may travel, or they may use telehealth to be prescribed abortion medication by a provider located in a protected state who sends it through the mail, allowing the patient to take it at home.

Looking ahead, hostile states are likely to do everything in their power to cut off out-of-state abortion access, whether through travel or telehealth. States that protect abortion rights have enacted “shield laws,” legislation that protects providers located in the state against efforts to prosecute, sue, or otherwise discipline them for serving patients from other states.¹ As of June 2026, the most recent data showed nearly 15,000 abortions provided a month under shield laws that empower providers to serve people living in states with total or six-week bans or restrictions on telehealth².

Legal challenges to shield laws are brewing, including one by the state of Texas asking a court in New York to enforce penalties against a doctor located in New York who allegedly provides abortion using telehealth under the state’s protections.³ Private plaintiffs are also seeking to sue and shut down providers, filing frivolous and bizarre lawsuits in state and federal court.⁴ Sooner or later, abortion opponents will seek Supreme Court review of shield laws, hoping that a majority will find a way to strike them down. The Center is actively involved in the civil defense of providers who have been caught in the crosshairs and sued for allegedly providing abortion care to patients in states that have banned abortion.

Interstate access also depends on people having information about where and how abortion is available in other states, and resources and help for travel, sometimes long distances at significant expense. Four years after Dobbs, courts have largely rejected hostile state efforts to ban or limit sharing information or helping people travel, on the grounds that they violate First Amendment rights to speech and association, or the right to travel.⁵ Going forward, states may renew their attempts to block residents from interstate access, forcing courts to confront whether Dobbs’ putative nod to allowing states to determine abortion policy within their borders was real or a sham.

Path to restoring rights

Path to restoring abortion and building reproductive autonomy rights

State supreme courts that have recognized abortion rights in their constitutions will continue to apply them to new and old restrictions, building precedent that rejects stilted Dobbs-like versions of constitutional analysis while expanding access in their states. The Center is advancing cases, including in Montana, Kansas, and Michigan, inviting courts to address how factors like poverty, stigma, and gender discrimination work to cut off rights and access to care. Importantly, state courts can overturn decisions that ignored such factors or denied rights altogether, explaining that they are products of regressive legal forces that undermined personal freedom in favor of backwards-looking constitutional reasoning.⁶ State courts are therefore critical bulwarks to safeguarding rights at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is increasingly retracting federal constitutional rights.

State courts can further build rights to reproductive autonomy by deciding cases about issues apart from and in addition to abortion. For example, a district court in Hawaii held that the state constitution’s protections for the customary and traditional practices of native Hawaiians include the right to have a midwife attend birth as a component of making personal decisions about reproductive life. And in Montana, courts have recognized that the same rights to bodily autonomy, personal decision-making, and equal treatment prohibit both restrictions on abortion and the rights of trans people to access health care and exercise civil rights.⁷

These models from state courts lay the groundwork, showing how a range of provisions–including life, health, and inalienable rights–fundamentally protect the right to make decisions about your body and future, even if legislatures disagree. State court challenges also give public mobilization in favor of expanded rights and access opportunities to shape how judges interpret the law, as voters approve reproductive freedom amendments and participate in judicial selection processes. In Dobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court claimed insulation from the tragic impact that abortion bans and restrictions have on real lives, erecting “history and tradition” as a barrier to protecting fundamental rights and freedoms. This reasoning faces headwinds from state courts, a public health reckoning, popular opinion, and political processes, even while federal judges are appointed for life. The power of a single flawed Supreme Court decision to impede multiple forces for change will be tested, and state court decisions will show the way when the federal courts are ready to step back up and protect reproductive autonomy including abortion more strongly than ever before.

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