Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
Donald Trump’s Epstein Mess Keeps Getting Worse

Donald Trump’s Epstein Mess Keeps Getting Worse

How the Trump Administration Abandoned Plans for a Major Cut in Disability Benefits for Older Workers

How the Trump Administration Abandoned Plans for a Major Cut in Disability Benefits for Older Workers

What Bad Bunny Can Teach Us About Leadership, Belonging, and the Power of Place

What Bad Bunny Can Teach Us About Leadership, Belonging, and the Power of Place

​Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Resigns: The Primary Problem Exposes America’s Broken Election System

Presidents can no longer be trusted with pardons

Presidents can no longer be trusted with pardons

What is a trigger law?

Anti-abortion protest at the Supreme Court

Proponents and opponents of abortion rights gather outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
David Meyers
By David MeyersMay 04, 2022
David Meyers

David Meyers is the Executive Editor of The Fulcrum. Before launching The Fulcrum, David spent more than two decades at CQ Roll Call, a leading publisher of political news and information. During his time there, David served as managing editor of Roll Call (“the newspaper of Capitol Hill”) and as managing editor of member information and research, which included co-editing the definitive biographical directory of Congress, “Politics in America.” David went on to lead all of CQ Roll Call’s congressional research teams as vice president of research and content development before shifting to a revenue and strategy role as vice president of business operations for Roll Call, working with the advertising and editorial teams to develop new revenue models and expand the company’s events business. David lives in Fairfax, Va., with his wife, two daughters and rottweiler. A graduate of Tufts University, David is a past president of the Tufts University Alumni Association. He is also a past president of the Washington Press Club Foundation, which works to celebrate and advance the role of women and minorities in the media. David currently serves on the board of directors for Temple B’nai Shalom in Fairfax Station.

See More Writings by author

If the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade becomes an official court decision, states will be free to legislate abortion issues as they see fit. Abortions will immediately become illegal in 13 states that have passed “trigger laws” tied to a court decision.

What does that mean?

A trigger law is designed to take effect when certain conditions are met. The legislative maneuver is in the news this week because more than a dozen states, mostly in the South and the Plains, have laws that would ban or restrict abortions as soon as the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision is overturned.

Trigger laws are now solely the province of legislatures that oppose abortion. For example, a handful of states will automatically shut down their Medicaid expansion if certain conditions change at the federal level.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, the following states have trigger laws that would restrict, if not ban, abortions:

  • Arkansas
  • Idaho
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • North Dakota
  • Oklahoma
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Wyoming

Nine states, some overlapping with the above list, already had abortion ban laws on the books prior to Roe, and those laws would once again be in effect if the the court acts as expected:

  • Alabama
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • Michigan
  • Mississippi
  • Oklahoma
  • Texas
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin

If these laws go into effect, millions of people would be barred from having an abortion unless Congress passes legislation making abortion legal nationwide. However, any such bill would need 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster (which is not going to happen). The alternative would be to change or eliminate the filibuster rule so legislation can be passed by a simple majority vote. But centrist Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema remain opposed to changing the filibuster rules.

Latest news

Nonprofit Offers $25,000 Financial Relief As over 6,000  Undocumented Students Lose In-State Tuition
Governance & Legislation

Nonprofit Offers $25,000 Financial Relief As over 6,000  Undocumented Students Lose In-State Tuition

Navigating US Healthcare Changes to ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, and More.
Health

Navigating US Healthcare Changes to ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, and More.

Democracy 2.0 Requires a Commitment to the Common Good
Governance & Legislation

Democracy 2.0 Requires a Commitment to the Common Good

Read More

As Cities Test Guaranteed Income, Congresswoman Pushes for a Federal Pilot

In October, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) introduced federal legislation to establish a federal guaranteed income pilot program.

(Zachary Miller/MNS)

As Cities Test Guaranteed Income, Congresswoman Pushes for a Federal Pilot

In 2018, Moriah Rodriguez was in a car accident that left her with a traumatic brain injury and unable to work. A few years later, she and her four children were on the brink of homelessness when she enrolled in the Denver Basic Income Project.

Rodriguez, who now serves on the DBIP Board of Directors, used the unconditional cash transfers provided through the program to find a place to live and pay off debt. She believes that, if not for the program, her life would be fundamentally different.

Keep ReadingShow less
As Cities Test Guaranteed Income, Congresswoman Pushes for a Federal Pilot

In October, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) introduced federal legislation to establish a federal guaranteed income pilot program.

(Zachary Miller/MNS)

As Cities Test Guaranteed Income, Congresswoman Pushes for a Federal Pilot

In 2018, Moriah Rodriguez was in a car accident that left her with a traumatic brain injury and unable to work. A few years later, she and her four children were on the brink of homelessness when she enrolled in the Denver Basic Income Project.

Rodriguez, who now serves on the DBIP Board of Directors, used the unconditional cash transfers provided through the program to find a place to live and pay off debt. She believes that, if not for the program, her life would be fundamentally different.

Keep ReadingShow less
Adoption in America Is Declining—The Need Isn’t
man and woman holding hands
Photo by Austin Lowman on Unsplash

Adoption in America Is Declining—The Need Isn’t

Two weeks ago, more than 50 kids gathered at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, not for the roller coasters or the holiday decorations, but to be legally united with their “forever” families.

Events like this happened across the country in November in celebration of National Adoption Month. When President Bill Clinton established the observance in 1995 to celebrate and encourage adoption as “a means for building and strengthening families,” he noted that “much work remains to be done.” Thirty years later, that work has only grown.

Keep ReadingShow less
The baking isn’t done only by elected officials. It’s done by citizens​

a view of the capitol building

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

The baking isn’t done only by elected officials. It’s done by citizens​

In November, eight Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to end the longest government shutdown in history, with little to show for the 43-day closure.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who was not one of the eight, told discouraged Democrats, “We need to remember the battle we’re in….[We need to continue the fight] to defend our country from Trump and MAGA. Two things coming up that are really important,” Whitehouse said, “1) In December, there will be a vote on extending the Affordable Care credits we fought for. That gives us…weeks to hammer the Republicans so hard that we actually get a good Affordable Care credits bill.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2025