Why Republicans will pass major national anti-abortion legislation at their first opportunity

The impact of Texas’s pilot nullification of Roe v. Wade has been to significantly reduce abortion access, but the law has been mitigated by alternatives:

In the months after Texas banned all but the earliest abortions in September, the number of legal abortions in the state fell by about half. But two new studies suggest the total number among Texas women fell by far less — around 10 percent — because of large increases in the number of Texans who traveled to a clinic in a nearby state or ordered abortion pills online.

Two groups of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin counted the number of women using these alternative options. They found that while the Texas law — which prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, or around six weeks — lowered the number of abortions, it did so much more modestly than earlier measurements suggested.

Combined, the data points to what may happen to abortion access if the Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. Wade when it rules on another abortion law this summer. The data shows the limitations of laws restricting abortion. Yet it also shows how restrictions erect significant obstacles, which will cause some women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

Of course, precisely because of this the next Republican steps will be to close the alternatives. Every neighboring state except New Mexico will also have banned abortion within a year of Roe being overruled in June. Various actions will be taken against abortion pills. And ultimately Republicans are going to ban many, most, or all abortions at the federal level.