"They're way overestimating our potential," said Mary Spaulding Balch, state legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. "They're trying to scare the American people into thinking we're going back to the back-alley, coat-hanger days, but that's not the case."
"Much as we'd like to see it all end ... I think it's a chipping-away process," said Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life.
Pushing aside the spin from both sides, health law expert George Annas of Boston University said the true effect of reversing Roe would probably be minimal.
It all depends, of course, on the wording of any Supreme Court decision. If the court holds that embryos and fetuses have their own rights under the U.S. Constitution, a complete ban on abortion would be possible. But most analysts think that's highly unlikely.
A more plausible scenario would be a limited ruling that returns some control of abortion to the states, but still recognizes a woman's right to end a pregnancy if her life or health is at stake. If health is interpreted as broadly as it is today -- to mean emotional as well as physical health -- most women would still be able to claim the right to abortion, though they might need to go through additional steps, such as meeting with a psychologist or getting approval from more than one doctor.
"Abortion will be outlawed in a number of states, but that doesn't mean it will be banned," said Annas, an abortion rights supporter.
Rick Duncan, a University of Nebraska law professor who opposes abortion, agreed: "Nebraska's a very pro-life state, but even here, I think it would be really hard to get a law ... banning abortion from the date of conception."
About half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned, and nearly half of those end in abortion, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
The nation's abortion rate has been falling since the early 1980s. Currently, about 1 million abortions are performed each year in the U.S. Few are done to preserve the woman's life or physical health; overwhelmingly, women say they seek abortions because they're not prepared emotionally or financially to raise a child.
That was the case for Elizabeth Friedland, a senior at Indiana University, who said she had an abortion at 18 because she did not want an unplanned pregnancy to interrupt her life.
