If Roe v. Wade is overturned, there’s no guarantee that people can get abortions in liberal states, either

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Amanda Jean Stevenson, University of Colorado Boulder and Kate Coleman-Minahan, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

(THE CONVERSATION) Liberal policymakers are quickly positioning their states as abortion havens after a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion indicating that the court could overturn Roe v. Wade was made public on the evening of May 2, 2022.

Less than an hour after the leak was made public, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a new state amendment that would legally protect the right to abortion.

“We can’t trust SCOTUS,” Newsom wrote on Twitter, using shorthand for the Supreme Court, “to protect the right to abortion, so we’ll do it ourselves. Women will remain protected here.”

New York, Connecticut, Oregon and five other states have also proposed or passed new measures over the last few months that protect the right to an...