Mark Minck’s mother was in a prime demographic for having an abortion—she was young, single, and pregnant.
But her choice in the 1960s was to place her son up for adoption. And he grew up with loving parents, who made him feel chosen and proud to be adopted, Minck told The Epoch Times.
“You were just born in your family—they had to bring you home,” he recalled thinking as a child about other children. “Well, I was adopted. I thought it was something extra special.
“She made the most important decision, at that moment, that she could make for my life. If she had made the other decision, I wouldn’t have had a life. And not only would I not have had a life, if she had made a different decision, but my three children also wouldn’t have existed, and never could have in the history of the world.”
He and his mother were miraculously reunited more than 50 years later by a DNA test, he said. It was then that he thanked her and introduced her to her grandchildren. The reunited mother and son shared joyful holidays, love, and laughter until her passing.
Today, Minck is the state chairman of the pro-life group Protect Human Life Florida, which aims to change the state’s constitution with an amendment to protect unborn human life. It’s a mission his birth mother embraced alongside him, one that made her “thrilled, extremely proud,” he said.
The amendment would recognize “the God-given right to life of the preborn individual,” outlawing abortion in the state.
New Political Battleground
The June 2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade created a new political battleground, giving power back to state governments to ban or protect abortion.In 1973, the Supreme Court had decided in Roe v. Wade that the Constitution includes a “right to privacy” that allows women to get an abortion. At that time, the justices acknowledged three parts—or trimesters—of pregnancy.
For the first trimester, the Roe v. Wade decision allowed for no governmental abortion restrictions. The decision to terminate pregnancy was left solely to the discretion of the pregnant woman.
For the second trimester, justices ruled that states could “regulate,” but not outlaw, the procedure. For the third trimester, Roe v. Wade allowed states to restrict abortions.
Everything changed on June 24, 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned that 49-year standard in deciding a new case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
And since then, there’s been a complicated cascade of new state laws addressing abortion.
With the Roe v. Wade decision no longer guaranteeing the legality of abortions in the United States, old laws—some predating the Civil War—have become part of the debate. Some believe those old laws call for an outright ban of abortion in their state.
In other states, lawmakers have passed laws restricting abortion, then judges have blocked those new abortion bans.
And some states are strengthening legal protections for abortion.
Experts told The Epoch Times that much of current state abortion law is confusing, as a flurry of new laws, lawsuits, and trigger bans has made it hard to tell which laws are actually in effect.
Online searches for current abortion law often return contradictory information.
Laws in Transition
Walter Weber, senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, predicted that the first round of victories in fights over new abortion laws likely will go to the well-funded pro-abortion lobby.“The abortion lobby, if I’m gonna call it that, has a lot of power and a lot of money,” he told The Epoch Times. “And that often translates into electoral victories.”
Well-funded fighters can hand pro-abortion activists victories even in states where most people support pro-life measures, he said.
But as medical technology increasingly shows Americans that unborn babies are human, and as women open up about how abortion has hurt them, public opinion will swing back toward the pro-life movement, Weber predicted.
“After the dust settles on that, then I think we’re going to start seeing a rollback. But it’s going to probably take some time,” he said.
Minck called the resulting mix of current laws a “crazy hodgepodge.”
And as a result, pro-life leaders have been confused about what to do after the reversal of Roe v. Wade, he said.
For years, pro-life leaders proposed legislation that attempted to ban some abortions, despite Roe’s existence, or create laws that would be a “test case” for Roe, Minck said.
But with Roe overturned, these strategies no longer have a use, he said.
Pro-life leaders have been so focused on testing the waters that they haven’t realized they can jump into the pool, Minck said.
Where the Laws Stand
Most states ban abortion at different points in pregnancy. Some states don’t ban abortion at all.How states measure the dates is important. Some start counting weeks from the time of fertilization. Others start counting weeks since a woman’s last menstrual period. This difference can add or subtract a few weeks from an abortion ban’s start date.
Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia have almost total bans on abortion.
Alaska, Colorado, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont all have no restrictions on when abortions can occur.
California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wyoming ban most abortions after “viability.”
Several states ban abortion after a certain week of pregnancy.
Georgia is currently the only state that prohibits abortion from the moment when a fetal heartbeat can be detected—about six weeks into pregnancy.
Nevada has legalized abortion “within 24 weeks after the commencement of the pregnancy” and continues to allow abortion afterward if a doctor has “reasonable cause to believe that an abortion currently is necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.” This rule also allows abortion for mental health reasons.
Most state laws currently restricting abortion allow the procedure if it’s determined to be necessary to save the life of the mother.
Several states also allow abortion in cases of rape and incest.
No Big Drop in Abortion
Many activists who protested against the overturn of Roe v. Wade said they feared legal abortion would end with the court’s decision.Yet many states continue to keep abortion legal up to halfway through pregnancy.
“Many lawmakers don’t want to touch [abortion] unless they live in safe, bright red districts where it’s popular with their base,” Minck said of the pro-life cause.
“It just gets relegated to a bullet point or a talking point in a campaign, rather than an actual ‘let’s take this on and do something about this’ issue.”
Before the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, there were about 82,270 abortions performed in the United States every month, the report said. Now, it’s down to 77,073 abortions monthly.
If the rate stays the same, that would mean the changes triggered by Dobbs v. Jackson will move the United States from 987,240 abortions per year to 924,876.
There’s also evidence that women are traveling to get abortions, the report notes. States with fewer restrictions on abortion have seen overall abortion numbers increase.
Experts within the pro-life movement are unsure of how accurate those figures are, according to Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life Action.
“What we know about the number of abortions is what Corporate Abortion tells us,” she said in an email.
Either way, a long-term division between “abortion states” and “life states” won’t work well, Minck said.
“We’ve got governors of states putting up billboards saying, ‘Hey, come to our state! We’ll welcome you with open arms so you can come and kill your preborn baby,'” he said.
“And corporations are going to build [abortion] into their [human resources] benefits package.
“‘Come to New York, take in a show, see Central Park, and abort your preborn child two days before your due date!’
“How does that work long term in our country?”
With abortion’s current legal status, a woman who wants an abortion will be able to get it, Minck said.
To end abortion, pro-life activists would need to get pro-life laws or constitutional amendments on the federal level, he said.
Although it’s important for pro-life activists to fight abortion’s cultural acceptance, settling the debate in the law is the long-term solution, he said.
“I would love it if abortion was unthinkable. I would also love it if theft was unthinkable. Or drunk driving was unthinkable. Or rape, human trafficking and home invasion, or assault and child abuse. People still do that kind of stuff,” he said.
He said he suspects that the Supreme Court eventually will rule on whether an unborn baby is a human life.
Meanwhile, many continue to work with the aim of a nationwide ban on abortion.
Hamrick’s group is working to pass legislation on the state and national levels against the abortion pill. They also hope to pass a “national heartbeat ban,” a law prohibiting abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detectable.
“We want to see life protected as early as possible, as soon as possible, and we want to see services increase to provide support for families,” Hamrick wrote to The Epoch Times.
Her group also has petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Association (FDA) to limit the use of the abortion pill to prevent environmental harm.
From there, the chemicals that cause abortion can harm pregnant animals or cause birth defects. Furthermore, the remains of dead babies are also flushed into the water supply from which we all drink.
“It is likely that the nation’s drinking water is contaminated in some appreciable amount by the increasing abundance of Mifepristone and human remains—as of February 2022, 54% of all abortions were performed via Mifepristone usage, up from 39% in 2017—being flushed into the system,” the complaint reads.
Students for Life Action has asked for a temporary pause on abortion pills while the FDA studies the potential environmental effects of chemical abortions.
Triggers and Blocks
Before Roe v. Wade was overturned, some states created “trigger laws” designed to snap into effect immediately if the landmark federal case were to be overturned. As long as Roe v. Wade was upheld, those measures would be considered unlawful.But pro-abortion activists were ready with lawsuits.
After these lawsuits, some judges have blocked pro-life states, at least temporarily, from restricting abortion.
In most states, judicial blocks have since ended, and those laws were allowed to go into effect.
But in other states, the blocks have proven more robust.
Now that wording is being used to block an abortion ban passed by lawmakers.
But Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens said the amendment’s wording also allows abortion in the state.
Conservative Wyoming legislators have argued that abortion isn’t health care; it’s the taking of a human life.
Abortion Availability
Judicial action blocking laws can have massive effects on abortion availability.Wyoming law allows abortion up to viability, the point at which a baby could survive outside the womb. Unborn babies are considered viable at 23 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. But babies now are surviving after being born even earlier. At least one baby has been born at 21 weeks and survived.
The new state law would ban all abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or severe risk of death or injury to the mother. But it’s been challenged and blocked.
Utah, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, North Dakota, and Iowa also have passed abortion ban laws that judges have blocked.
In Utah, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio, there are ongoing legal battles over these judicial blocks.
In South Carolina and North Dakota, the courts struck down the states’ abortion bans.
Abortion Protections
The overturning of Roe v. Wade has caused legislators in other states to increase protections for abortion.In the past four years, California, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Delaware have passed laws protecting abortion access. The laws function in various ways.
In California, Kansas, Michigan, Vermont, Hawaii, Alaska, and Michigan, the state constitution makes abortion a right. Pro-life fighters in those states know that removing that right would be challenging.
All of those states require a vote by two-thirds of the legislators and a statewide referendum to amend their constitutions.
Old Laws
The overturning of Roe v. Wade also resurrected laws that had largely vanished from memory.In Wisconsin and Arizona, laws dating back to the Civil War or earlier offered some of the strongest pro-life protections in the nation. These laws ban all abortions, with exceptions only to save the mother’s life.
These laws have resulted in fierce court battles to determine abortion’s legality.
Other old laws may have national effects.
This sweeping ban could include abortion pills, surgical tools, and any other items used in the procedure, Weber said. Even in states where abortion is legal, receiving by mail the tools to perform an abortion could be against the law, he said.
“If we’re right in our interpretation that the Comstock Act means what it says, and you can’t mail abortion pills, that does not mean that abortion is illegal everywhere nationally—it just means it can’t be mailed,” Weber said.
Federal enforcement of the 150-year-old law could have its greatest effect on the distribution of abortion pills, he said. Today, a majority of abortions happen by pill, he said.
“Normally, you’re not mailing suction machines. You’re mailing the pills,” Weber said.
Abortion advocates have often described the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a “return to the past.”
But it’s likely that few imagined the past could return so powerfully to possibly put abortion at risk.
For Minck, his battle to end abortion started with his mother’s decision to “choose life,” he said. As an adult, he learned she'd never been “abortion-minded” and made the decision to place him up for adoption so he might be a blessing for a couple who couldn’t conceive.
“She would specifically tell me she was proud of me for wanting to protect the preborn, more so than ‘ending abortion,’” he said.
“It’s a subtle distinction, but it kind of ties in with our proposed [Florida constitutional] amendment that affirms life, rather than denouncing abortion.
“I think ultimately she just found it providentially amazing that her decision to choose life was having an impact over half a century later through my efforts to protect all preborn life in Florida.”
