‘Trigger Laws’ Set Off a Scramble for Abortion Services

In Arkansas, where a trigger law banning abortions went into effect on Friday, 17 patients had been scheduled for abortions on Friday at Little Rock Family Planning Services, but none were performed before the Supreme Court’s decision shut down operations. About 30 more patients had been scheduled for an ultrasound and consultation that was required under Arkansas’ previous law before women could get an abortion.

The Yellowhammer Fund, which is based in Alabama and provides financial support to women seeking abortions, has received an influx of calls in the last day from people confused about the changing laws and seeking guidance and money to travel elsewhere for abortions.

“People who had appointments for next week no longer have appointments,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, the executive director of the fund. “The person who runs the call line is very overwhelmed.”

Legal experts confronted a quickly changing landscape of abortion laws. In the newly redrawn map of the United States that was taking shape on Saturday, abortion was banned in at least nine states, prompting vows of swift enforcement from officials in conservative states. Prosecutors in liberal states and counties responded with defiance, saying they would not violate their own values by pursuing criminal cases against doctors who had performed abortions.

Demonstrations continued to roil cities across the country. Americans said they were steeling themselves for a fight in the wake of the court’s decision, whether that meant pushing for still more restrictions on abortion, or working to elect politicians in the midterm elections who favor abortion rights.

“I fear for my child. I worry that she isn’t going to have choice,” said Abbye Putterman, 36, who stood outside an abortion clinic in Overland Park, Kan., on Saturday and spoke of the impact the decision could have on her 12-year-old daughter. “I feel like a whole bunch of white men are trying to decide what my daughter should do. Those men don’t know anything about what it’s like to carry a child — what pregnancy does to your body.”

Abortion is still legal in Kansas but was banned in neighboring Missouri on Friday. In August, a ballot initiative will ask voters in Kansas to decide whether the State Constitution should continue to protect the right to an abortion.

Ms. Putterman was at the clinic to show support to the women receiving services there, while anti-abortion protesters gathered outside.

“We don’t believe in moral compromise, and we don’t want them to be guilty of murder,” said Valley Scharping, 26, who stood on the sidewalk. He held a sign that read “Love your preborn neighbor as yourself.”

On Saturday, President Biden spoke of the Roe decision. “Jill and I know how painful and devastating the decision is for so many Americans,” he said, adding that the administration would focus on states and “how they administer it and whether or not they violate other laws.”

Some states imposed new abortion restrictions on Saturday, and others tried to accelerate timelines for the bans to take place.

After the Supreme Court handed control over abortion restrictions back to the states, at least nine states that are home to roughly 40 million people quickly put bans in place. Other abortion prohibitions that had been passed in anticipation of a post-Roe legal landscape were working their way through the courts.

In Idaho, North Dakota and Texas, officials said they would wait the 30 days stipulated in their laws for their so-called trigger laws to take effect, banning abortion.

In Ohio, a law outlawing abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy took effect after a federal judge lifted an injunction that had blocked the law for the past three years. Gov. Mike DeWine reiterated his opposition to abortion on Friday, saying he believed “that the life of a human being is at stake and we have an obligation to protect that innocent life.”

Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah filed a lawsuit in state court on Saturday seeking to block the state’s ban on abortion, which went into effect on Friday. The lawsuit argues that the ban violates several protections in the state’s constitution, including the right to determine family composition. Planned Parenthood in the state said that it had to stop performing abortions immediately after the ban went into effect and that it would have to cancel 55 abortion appointments scheduled for next week unless temporary relief was granted.

In many states, residents were left to grapple with a confusing array of pronouncements as local and state officials clashed over the legalities of abortion restrictions and how they would be enforced.

In Tennessee, Herbert Slatery, the attorney general, filed an emergency motion on Friday asking a court to lift an injunction and allow a ban on abortions after six weeks to be made law.

“After nearly 50 years, today’s decision gives the people of Tennessee a say on what the Court called ‘a profound moral issue,’” he said in a statement.

But Glenn Funk, the district attorney in Nashville, said in a statement that he would not prosecute doctors performing abortions or women who choose such a procedure.

“I will use my constitutional powers to protect women, health providers and those making personal health decisions,” he said.

Officials of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, which was the center of the case decided on Friday by the Supreme Court, predicted that conservative activists would soon seek limits to rights related to birth control and same-sex marriage.

Diane Derzis, who owns the clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said it would most likely remain open for 10 days after the Supreme Court’s decision, before shutting its doors when a new law is expected to take effect in that state.

“It has begun,” she said. “In the next few days, weeks and year, you will see half of the states have no abortion services. We are continuing to do services. We are not laying down.”

In states where abortion remains legal, leaders promised to reinforce protections.

Governors in California, Oregon and Washington issued a joint “commitment to reproductive freedom,” saying they would welcome people who sought abortions in their states and push back on efforts by other state governments to prosecute people who did so.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, called for a special session for lawmakers to strengthen abortion rights, anticipating that women from other states would be flocking to Illinois for abortion services.

At a Planned Parenthood clinic in Waukegan, Ill., just miles from the Wisconsin border, a group of about 20 anti-abortion protesters stood with signs and prayed on Saturday.

The clinic was opened in 2020 in anticipation that Roe would be overturned and Wisconsin would ban abortions, said Mary Jane Maharry, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Illinois. “We do have enough staff to meet the needs today and we are working at increasing our staff to meet the anticipated surge of 20,000 to 30,000 additional out-of-state patients per year,” she said.

In Charleston, W. Va., the state’s lone abortion clinic ended all appointments, fearing that an abortion ban from the 19th century was suddenly enforceable again after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

One of the appointments had just been made on Thursday by a 21-year-old pregnant woman in West Virginia who had weighed whether she was ready to have a child and decided that she was not.

On Friday, a clinic employee called to tell the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared her parents would disown her if they knew she was planning to have an abortion, that her appointment would be canceled.

“When I went to bed, I had my appointment and everything was set,” she said, “and then today it’s like pre-1973.”

Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Aurelien Breeden, Robert Chiarito, Emily Cochrane, Jimmie E. Gates, Carey Gillam, Victoria Kim and Erica Sweeney.

“We need the president and all of his cabinet secretaries immediately to have detailed plans about what they can implement so that people can have the information they need,” Ms. Murray, the chairwoman of the Senate health committee, said in an interview. “It’s frustrating because with this decision in place, it is now imperative that women get the information they need today.”

This month, before the court’s ruling, more than 20 Senate Democrats sent Mr. Biden a letter urging him to issue an executive order that would defend abortion and reproductive rights. They suggested that the federal government could take steps to increase access to medication abortion and provide resources for people seeking out-of-state abortion care, such as travel vouchers, among other actions.

With an evenly divided Senate, Democrats have little hope of legislative action on abortion rights — leaving the president’s executive authority, however limited, as one of the few avenues on the federal level for trying to mitigate the effects of the court’s ruling.

While a bill focused on increasing reproductive rights and codifying the abortion rights in Roe passed the House last fall, it failed to clear the Senate last month in the face of opposition from all Republicans and one Democrat, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. Mr. Manchin has expressed support for codifying Roe, but Democrats would still need the support of 10 Republicans to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to pass most bills in the chamber.

“We don’t have the votes to overturn this decision right now,” Ms. Murray said. “That is why the November election is so critical.”

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that Mr. Biden would continue seeking legal advice about what executive actions he could take. But she emphasized the need for congressional action in response to the court’s ruling.

“The reality is we have to get Congress to act to restore Roe, to make it law of the land,” she said.

Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, said that the ruling “feels like a loss for women everywhere” in a statement posted on Instagram.

In March 2020, legislators in New Zealand voted to allow unrestricted access to abortion during the first half of pregnancy and loosened restrictions for the latter half.

“That change was grounded in the fundamental belief that it’s a woman’s right to choose,” Ms. Ardern said. “People are absolutely entitled to have deeply held convictions on this issue. But those personal beliefs should never rob another from making their own decisions.”

She added: “When there are so many issues to tackle, so many challenges that face woman and girls, we need progress, not to fight the same fights and move backwards.”

Before the ruling was announced, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, had invited abortion rights groups and health workers to participate in an emergency summit on abortion care on Monday in response to a rise in anti-abortion protests, reported The Scotsman.

After the ruling, Ms. Sturgeon wrote on Twitter: “One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime.”

“Obviously the immediate consequences will be suffered by women in the U.S. — but this will embolden anti-abortion and anti-women forces in other countries too,” she added.

The strongest response came from Northern Europe, where women lead four of the five Nordic countries.

In Iceland, which became the first country to have a female elected president in 1980, the prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, wrote on Twitter that she was “gravely disappointed and heartbroken” by the ruling. “We should be expanding women’s rights, not restricting them,” Ms. Jakobsdóttir said.

Sweden’s first female prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, also criticized the ruling on Twitter.

“To deprive women of their individual choice is a serious reversion of the protection of rights and health,” Ms. Andersson wrote. “Yesterday was a giant step back for girls and women in the US.”

Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde wrote: “Depriving women of their individual rights is a backlash against decades of hard-fought work,” while Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark called the decision “a huge setback” on Facebook.

Norway’s foreign minister, Anniken Huitfeldt, said the decision was a “serious setback” in a statement.

“Norway will increase international cooperation to strengthen girls’ and women’s rights to abortion and contraception,” Ms. Huitfeldt said.

Mike Ives contributed reporting.

The lawsuit in Utah argues that the state’s ban violates several provisions in the State Constitution, including the right to determine family composition and the right to equality between the sexes.

Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, which said it provides health care to about 46,000 people each year at eight health centers, is also seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunctive relief to stop the ban from being implemented.

“In one terrible moment, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and Utahns’ power to control their own bodies, lives, and personal medical decisions was threatened,” Karrie Galloway, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, said in a statement.

Under the ban, abortions are allowed in cases of rape or incest, to avert the death of or “serious risk” of impairment of a bodily function to a pregnant woman or if two doctors determine the fetus has a “uniformly lethal” defect.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in the Third Judicial District Court for Salt Lake County, Planned Parenthood said that it had to stop performing abortions immediately after the ban went into effect and that it would have to cancel 55 abortion appointments scheduled for next week unless temporary relief was granted.

The organization said that forced pregnancy would have a “dramatic, negative” impact on families’ financial stability and that in 2021, 45 percent of its abortion patients reported earning less than 130 percent of the federal poverty level.

The defendants include Utah’s attorney general, Sean Reyes, and governor, Spencer Cox. Mr. Cox said in a statement on Friday that he “wholeheartedly” supported the Supreme Court’s decision.

The attorney general’s office declined to comment and the governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit, which also claimed that the ban violates Utah’s constitutional protections to privacy, bodily integrity, involuntary servitude and religious freedom.

Planned Parenthood Association of Utah said that at the time the lawsuit was filed, the three nearest abortion clinics were more than 200 miles away from Salt Lake City, in Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado.

The lawsuit cautioned that abortion bans were set to take effect in the near future in both Idaho and Wyoming.

The Supreme Court’s toppling of Roe v. Wade means that the future of abortion access in Pennsylvania depends to a large extent on the next governor, a fact that Mr. Shapiro wanted to make sure wasn’t lost on the crowd.

“There is a clear choice in this governor’s race,” he said. “My opponent on the other side,” he continued, referring to the Republican candidate Doug Mastriano, “his No. 1 priority — his words not mine — is to end abortion, to have a complete ban on abortion.”

That theme was emphasized over and over again by the local and national Democratic politicians representing the Philadelphia region who joined Mr. Shapiro at the rally.

Leaders of the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature have already been gearing up to consider changes to the state’s abortion law.

“This ruling presents a necessary opportunity to examine our existing abortion law, and discussions around possible changes are already underway,” Speaker of the House Bryan Cutler and House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, both Republicans, said in a joint statement on Friday.

Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is currently the only person standing in the way of any Republican efforts to pass new restrictions. “As long as I am governor, I vow to protect abortion access and reproductive health care in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Wolf said in a statement.

But Mr. Mastriano, the Republican candidate, has promised to sign a bill he is sponsoring as a state senator, which would ban abortions at roughly six weeks.

Hazel Heiko, 14, said she was angry that “even if women were raped or subjected to incest or something like that,” they might now be forced to have their child in states moving to ban abortion. “I’ve been talking with my friends who are my age about how it’s just not fair.”

She and her father, Jethro Heiko, 49, signed up to volunteer for Mr. Shapiro’s campaign. They said they hadn’t been planning to volunteer this year until they heard the news that Roe v. Wade had been overturned.

“I also believe this won’t be the last right that the Supreme Court is going to try to take away,” Mr. Heiko said. “So that’s what’s motivating me,” he continued, “things like contraception, same-sex marriage, privacy of anything.”

“When I went to bed, I had my appointment and everything was set, and then today it’s like pre-1973,” the woman said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared her parents would disown her if they knew she was planning to have an abortion.

It is a scene that was playing out across the United States this weekend in the nine states with trigger laws, which quickly outlawed abortion, as well as in West Virginia and Wisconsin where officials are trying to determine whether century-old bans may now be valid again.

The attorney general in West Virginia said on Friday that he would soon issue an opinion on the legal status of abortion in his state.

For medical providers, abortion clinics and pregnant women, the shift has been sudden and jarring. Clinics have canceled appointments out of fear of prosecution. Women are scrambling to find treatment in neighboring states. And advocates are trying to raise money to transport women to clinics that remain open but are often far away.

In Arkansas, where a trigger law banning abortions went into effect on Friday, 17 patients had been scheduled for abortions on Friday at Little Rock Family Planning Services, but none were performed before the Supreme Court’s decision shut down operations. About 30 more patients had been scheduled for an ultrasound and consultation that was required under Arkansas’s previous law before women could get an abortion.

Lori Williams, the clinic director, said some patients had traveled from Texas and Oklahoma. Clinic employees had to contact patients and tell them not to come for their appointments.

The Yellowhammer Fund, which is based in Alabama and provides financial support to women seeking abortions, has received an influx of calls in the last day from people confused about the changing laws and seeking guidance and money to travel elsewhere for abortions.

“People who had appointments for next week no longer have appointments,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, the executive director of the fund. “The person who runs the call line is very overwhelmed.”

In Milwaukee, women who called the Affiliated Medical Services abortion clinic were met with a recorded message that said abortions were no longer available.

“We are saddened by this decision and how it will impact women everywhere,” the message said, suggesting patients travel to Illinois or Minnesota, where abortions are still legal.

The closest clinic to the shuttered Milwaukee facility is a Planned Parenthood facility in Waukegan, Ill., just across the border from Wisconsin, which opened in 2020 in anticipation of a moment like this.

“We’ve been preparing for this for years,” said Mary Jane Maharry, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Illinois.

Ms. Maharry said the facility had been inundated with calls since the Supreme Court’s decision, and that they were looking to hire additional staff members to prepare for 20,000 to 30,000 more patients coming from outside of the state each year. Since it opened, the clinic has provided services to only about 1,000 women from outside the state each year.

The 21-year-old woman in West Virginia said she had initially been in shock when she learned her appointment was canceled, crying so much that she got a headache. Then, she said, she quickly went into “survival mode,” researching which states were banning abortion and where she could travel to get one. Eventually, she found an abortion clinic in Roanoke, Va., about four hours away, and made an appointment for Wednesday. But she said she will remain anxious until then.

“I’m just hoping like, can I just make it to Wednesday,” she said. “I just need to make it to Wednesday.”

Reporting was contributed by Jason M. Bailey Julie Bosman, Robert Chiarito, Sydney Cromwell and Erica Sweeney.

Not far away, a strikingly different theme emerged as about a half-dozen abortion rights advocates condemned the ruling. “It’s not anyone’s business whether a woman chooses to have an abortion,” said Ellie Peck, 27, a preschool teacher in Austin.

One protester held a sign urging motorists at the intersection to “Honk if You Support Women’s Rights.” Some did.

Despite their proximity, there were no apparent tensions between the groups. But the array of signs and speeches among Ms. Zarr’s group apparently confused one passer-by, a man holding a toddler, who mistakenly thought he was observing an abortion rights protest. “Get out of Texas if you don’t support life,” he snapped. He quickly apologized after Ms. Zarr and others explained their purpose.

Ms. Zarr wore a purple T-shirt declaring “I am the pro-life generation,” a message echoed by signs among the crowd. “My children will grow up in post-Roe America,” one sign said.

Jordan Groff, a 28-year-old civil engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin, who wrote a book on the anti-abortion movement, attended the rally with his wife, Elizabeth Groff, who is also 28.

He called the Supreme Court decision “a great step toward protecting human life.”

Her concern stemmed from Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the abortion case, in which he argued that the precedents establishing the right to contraception and same-sex marriage should also be reconsidered.

While Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. sought in the majority opinion to assuage fears that such precedents were also at risk, the three liberal justices wrote in their dissent, “No one should be confident that this majority is done with its work.”

Wrapping up a couple of hours of protesting in Cincinnati, Ms. Miller said, “I cried when I heard the ruling, I have never been so scared in my life.”

The Pride Parade attracted more than 100,000 people, most clearly happy to be back on the streets after the parade was canceled for two years because of the pandemic. As they passed by Fountain Square, the heart of downtown, a couple hundred protesters were staging a rally in support of abortion rights, and the two groups largely merged into one, with many Pride participants carrying signs of support.

Julie Yasaki, 45, a lawyer in Cincinnati, said she was looking for an outlet to express her outrage and concern about the Supreme Court ruling, so she went online to find a protest and ended up downtown.

“We got a lot of support today from the Pride Parade. I will just keep at it,” Ms. Yasaki said, referring to her plan to keep attending protests.

Sarah Herndon, 20, of Hamilton, 20 miles to the north, came to Cincinnati with a group of friends to support Pride and protest the Supreme Court ruling.

“When I heard the ruling, I was distraught,” said Ms. Herndon, a student at The Ohio State University. “It made me feel like I was living in a dystopian society. Our leaders have a different agenda, they don’t care about us.”

Tanya Lowry, 51, brought her teenage daughters and some of their friends to the protest.

“They are the future, so this matters, but for me I figured it’s never too late to have my voice heard,” she said.

Many of the signatories represent districts that are liberal enclaves in states where Republican-led legislatures have or soon will enact abortion bans.

“Our legislatures may decide to criminalize personal health care decisions, but we remain obligated to prosecute only those cases that serve the interests of justice and the people,” the statement said.

However, some legal experts cautioned that regardless of the promise of local protections, the threat of prosecution could have a chilling effect on providers offering abortion services and the women who seek the procedure.

“Sometimes the threat is enough to change people’s behavior,” said Mary Zeigler, a law professor at the University of California Davis.

For example, abortion providers have already paused services in Wisconsin, despite the governor, attorney general and two district attorneys all announcing that they will not enforce the state’s ban. In Texas, Austin city councilors are pushing to decriminalize abortion in that city, limiting the police’s ability to investigate abortions. Several district attorneys pledged to not enforce the state’s trigger law, yet Planned Parenthood announced in a virtual news conference Friday that abortion services would pause in Texas.

“If you’re a doctor in Austin and you hear Texas saying it’s a serious felony, you might say, ‘Those risks are not worth it for me and my family,’” Ms. Zeigler said.

Among the signatories of Friday’s statement was the Nashville district attorney, Glenn Funk, who said in a statement Friday that he would not prosecute doctors performing abortions or women who choose such a procedure.

“I will use my constitutional powers to protect women, health providers and those making personal health decisions,” Mr. Funk said.

Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery of Tennessee is seeking to expedite the implementation of the state’s trigger law, which bans nearly all abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest. Regardless of the attorney general’s emergency motion, the law is scheduled to go into effect 30 days after Friday’s decision.

Video footage captured at the rally outside the State Capitol appeared to show Mr. Lugo, a Republican, punching Jennifer Rourke, his opponent, repeatedly in the face.

Ms. Rourke, a Democrat, is a reproductive rights organizer who had spoken at the protest. “This is what it is to be a Black woman running for office,” she said on Twitter. “I won’t give up.”

Mr. Lugo, who has served on the Providence force for three years, has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending a criminal investigation, the Providence police said on Saturday.

Jorge Elorza, the mayor of Providence, described the video as “immensely disturbing” in a statement on Saturday. “Those responsible will be held fully accountable,” he wrote.

The rally was among numerous protests held in cities across the country on Friday evening. Ms. Rourke had spoken to the crowd specifically about legislation under consideration in Rhode Island: the Equality in Abortion Coverage Act, which would allow Medicaid coverage of abortions in the state. She urged the General Assembly to reconvene in a special session to vote on the proposal.

Although the demonstration was largely peaceful, other video captured at the protest showed a heated confrontation between protesters and counterprotesters, and at one point state police officers rushing into the crowd.

On Saturday, abortion rights protesters gathered at a clinic in Overland Park, Kan., armed with signs, microphones and loudspeakers, to show their support for the women making their way to the clinic doors. Close by, abortion protesters took up their positions, chanting Bible verses and begging women not to “murder your baby.”

The scene was at times raucous with demonstrators from each side trying to outshout each other. One man wearing a black T-Shirt depicting a clenched fist held a megaphone only inches from the face of an anti-abortion protester who had his own microphone and amplifier. The two yelled insults at each other as the crowd of demonstrators around them alternatively chanted and waved signs. Quiet clinic volunteers tried to keep their distance as they carried rainbow-striped umbrellas used to shield women entering the clinic.

Holding a sign that read, “Love your preborn neighbor as yourself,” Valley Scharping, 26, said he had driven roughly two hours from his home in Manhattan, Kan., to take part in what has become a weekend ritual for members of a group called AIM, an acronym for “Abortion Is Murder.”

“We don’t believe in moral compromise, and we don’t want them to be guilty of murder,” said Mr. Scharping, referring to the women entering the clinic.

Standing a few feet away and wearing a body camera, Abbye Putterman, 36, said she came to the clinic because she has a 12-year-old daughter. “I fear for my child,” she said. “I worry that she isn’t going to have choice.”

Kansas is one of several states where abortion services were continuing unhindered on Saturday; in 2019 the State Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s right to have access to abortion services was protected by the State Constitution.

But the proposed amendment states that “there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion” and that Kansans have the “right to pass laws to regulate abortion, including, but not limited to, in circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or when necessary to save the life of the mother.”

Kansas primaries typically don’t see large turnouts, but the Aug. 2 vote on the abortion amendment is seen galvanizing people on both sides of the issue.

“We are on the front lines of a very divided America,” said Ms. Wales, referring to Planned Parenthood Great Plains.

A group called Kansans for Constitutional Freedom is racing to register voters by the July 12 deadline for the ballot initiative vote. Kathleen Sebelius, a former governor of Kansas who served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2009 until 2014, is volunteering with the group.

“We have an opportunity to make it very clear that Kansas women don’t want a government mandate on their reproductive health,” she said. “I look at my 2-year-old granddaughter and realize she will be growing up in an era where she has fewer rights than her grandmother.”

Lynn DeVoe, who attended the Overland Park protest and held an “I stand with Planned Parenthood” sign, said she didn’t like conflict and had never before been part of a demonstration, but that she felt compelled to action by the Supreme Court decision. She said she would be working to convince others to vote no on the Aug. 2 amendment.

“I’m worried,” Ms. DeVoe, 54, said. “I don’t want it to get overturned here. I believe that we deserve the right to our own bodies. Do I want everyone to go and have an abortion? No. But do we have the right? I believe we do.”

For Jackie Johnson, a longtime abortion rights supporter who lives in Mission Hills, Kan., the undoing of nearly 50 years of established law marks a dark return to a time she remembers all too well when a “coat hanger” was one of the best and only options for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy.

Ms. Johnson, 73, lived in Washington, D.C., in 1973 and remembers her feelings of satisfaction and joy when the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion was handed down.

“It is something that we all grew up with and we’ve taken it for granted,” said Ms. Johnson, who has spent years working with Planned Parenthood. “Younger people never understood what it would be like to have life without this choice, so this is a huge wake-up call for everyone. When your rights have been taken away, it really opens up your eyes.”

Ms. Michaels, 83, had an illegal abortion in 1956, long before the Roe decision made it legal in 1973. The process was harrowing, and she worries about what will happen to young women who find themselves in a similar situation now.

“There are going to be illegal abortions for sure, and women are going to die,” Ms. Michaels said. “It’s just unconscionable what they’ve done.”

Ms. Michaels was 17 years old, living in New Jersey, when she discovered she was pregnant. It was her first year of college, and she was studying math. Her boyfriend aspired to be a lawyer.

“It was really clear that we had to finish school,” she said.

It was almost impossible for the young college couple to find an abortion provider. “I just decided, ‘I’m going to have an abortion,’” Ms. Michaels said. “And I didn’t really understand how one was done or where you would get an abortion. So we went to every place we could think of.”

They eventually turned to her boyfriend’s father. He “came to my rescue,” Ms. Michaels said, but that rescue required a shroud of secrecy.

“They blindfolded me and put me in a car. Some man that I didn’t know drove. My future father-in-law was in the car,” she said.

Forty-five minutes later, she said, they arrived at an old house. She was met by a woman who told her to get up on the kitchen table.

“She unwrapped some instruments from a dirty towel and proceeded to insert some kind of something into my vagina,” she said.

Ms. Michaels was told that she would need to spend the entire next day walking.

“I walked for hours,” she said. “So I was essentially walking through labor and finally the fetus was expelled.”

But the bleeding didn’t stop. She hemorrhaged for five days and eventually landed in the emergency room.

Ms. Michaels is grateful to have gotten through it and believes her life would have turned out quite differently without that abortion. Her husband’s law degree and her own work in the early field of computer programming, she said, would have been difficult or impossible while raising a child.

“Somehow we would have muddled through and we would have survived, but not well,” she said.

Ms. Michaels now lives in Savannah, Ga. Abortion activism wasn’t a part of her life until recently. As the likelihood of abortion access being restricted became more apparent, she started to share her story at Planned Parenthood meetings, hoping to keep other women from having to go to the same lengths she did to get an abortion.

“It’s heartless, she said. “I don’t even know the right words to use to describe what they’ve done,” she said.

The line, delivered by Julianne Hough of “Dancing with the Stars” fame, also drew intense applause in early May, just after Politico published a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion suggesting that the court was preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade.

At the Friday performance, which took place about 10 hours after the court’s final ruling was issued, many in the audience at the Shubert Theater rose to their feet, forcing the show to pause midscene.

The play, which began performances April 27 and is scheduled to close Aug. 14, has a full title of “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” and is a comedy by Selina Fillinger that imagines a problematic president being shored up by a group of women on his staff and in his life. Hough plays Dusty, a young woman with whom the president has been having a relationship.

For many conservative believers and anti-abortion groups grounded in Catholic or evangelical principles, the Supreme Court’s decision was not just a political victory but a spiritual one.

“It is more than celebration,” said Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities. “It is a moment of gratitude to the Lord, and gratitude to so many people, in the church and beyond the church, who have worked and prayed so hard for this day to come.”

Even the timing of the decision had a spiritual overtone, coming on the day Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, honoring the love of Jesus for the world. It gave people “the opportunity to expand our hearts in love” for people at all stages of life, from before birth through death, Archbishop Lori said.

At midday Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, there was a buzz of excitement as parishioners and priests expressed joy at the ruling that came one hour earlier.

“In case you haven’t heard the news, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade,” said the Rev. Enrique Salvo, the rector of the cathedral, which is the seat of the powerful Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. One man seated in the pews pumped his fist in the air.

The sense of jubilation playing out in sanctuaries and homes cut a striking contrast to the mass protests from the many supporters of abortion rights outraged by the ruling. Waving signs and using megaphones, they said that conservatives were imposing their religious beliefs on the country and women’s bodies.

Many Protestants and Catholics do support abortion rights, but the Catholic Church itself has spent decades at the forefront of the anti-abortion movement.

“When you choose the opposite of life, you choose the opposite of love,” Father Salvo said during his homily. “And we must always choose love.”

The turning point for America was “just a phenomenal work of the Lord,” said Margaret H. Hartshorn, the chairman of the board of Heartbeat International, a network of anti-abortion pregnancy centers. She reflected on how far the movement has come since Jan. 22, 1973, the day the court legalized abortion nationwide, and how far it could still go.

“I believe God will use this to help us to build a greater culture of life, that in 50 years no woman will ever consider abortion,” she said.

For many, the importance of the moment was deeply personal. Bart Barber, the newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the pastor of First Baptist Church of Farmersville, Texas, thought of his two adopted children, now ages 16 and 19.

“Because of the joy I have in watching them grow into adulthood and make a difference, I cannot help but feel joy for all of the other babies who will have that opportunity now,” he said.

But for him it was also a moment of mourning, and of resolve.

“At this moment we realize the enormous toll of babies’ lives lost,” he said. “Abortion is still legal in many states, and we have work before us to bring about justice and protection for pre-born babies in those jurisdictions.”

Everything on Friday felt surreal, said Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, who was in front of the Supreme Court, where women from her organization and others, like Students for Life, had gathered to pray regularly since a draft opinion signaling the decision was leaked last month.

“A grievous wrong was righted,” she said. “I feel such incredible and deep gratitude, first to God, that I got to live to see this moment.”

David Bereit, who co-founded 40 Days for Life, a grass-roots faith-based effort with prayer and fasting campaigns to end abortion, could not stop crying. For years he and his family had traveled across the world for the cause.

“When you invest a good chunk of your life into something, when you have been disappointed, let down, discouraged so many times,” he said, “it seems like an answer to prayer.”

Time after time, the movement had seemed close to overturning Roe, recalled John Seago, the legislative director of Texas Right to Life, which advanced the state law that bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. So until he actually saw the decision, he did not dare believe it was truly real.

Now his group would focus on making sure that abortion bans were followed, he said, especially as some district attorneys were already refusing to enforce it. “This is a phenomenal moment for the pro-life movement that has been working toward this ruling for 50 years,” he said.

Early Friday evening, staff members of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America gathered for a champagne toast at their headquarters in northern Virginia. One by one, they shared stories of celebratory text messages and answered prayers that seemed like miracles. For many, this achievement marked their life’s work. For others, it felt like a new beginning.

“This moment is about redeeming the past and moving into the future,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, said. But the significance of the day was overwhelming.

“It’s really hard to get your mind around the idea that eventually millions of lives, branches of family trees will occur that would not have occurred,” she said. “The only way I can do it is to think of one. It is worth a whole life to save the life of another person.”

Liam Stack contributed reporting.

Among the other 24 states, only in Kansas do more voters oppose legalized abortion, though the margin there is just three percentage points.

Across the country, the majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the poll.

The current margin in favor of legalized abortion is 58 percent versus 38 percent opposed, with 4 percent of Americans saying they are unsure — figures that have held steady over the life of the poll.

Women support abortion rights by a 64 to 32 margin, while the gap is smaller, 50 to 45, among men.

Support for legal abortion declines with age, as the margin is 65 to 31 among those aged 18-34 but shrinks to 52 to 44 among people over the age of 65.

Support for abortion rights is much stronger among Democrats than Republicans and among Black and Latino voters than among white voters.

Ms. Borne was reacting to an announcement by Aurore Bergé, a top lawmaker for Mr. Macron’s party in the lower house of Parliament, who told France Inter radio on Saturday that the Supreme Court’s decision was “catastrophic for women around the world” and that lawmakers should move to prevent any future “reversals” on the issue.

“Women’s rights are always fragile rights that are regularly undermined,” Ms. Bergé said. “We must take no risks on the matter.”

Abortion has been legal in France since 1975, and a law passed this year pushed the deadline to get one from the 12th to the 14th week of pregnancy. Beyond that cutoff, abortion is possible only in exceptional circumstances, such as risk of severe harm to the mother. Abortions are fully covered by France’s social security system.

Changing the French Constitution is a long process, and it was not immediately clear when the bill announced by Ms. Bergé might be voted upon, especially after parliamentary elections this month that shifted the balance of power in the National Assembly. But left-wing parties have said that they would support efforts to enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution, which would give a bill enough votes to pass the initial stages of that process.

The far-right, which made big gains in the National Assembly this month, was long viscerally opposed to abortion. But the far-right leader Marine Le Pen has mollified her stance in recent years as part of a bid to soften her party’s image and attract more women voters. While she opposed the recent deadline extension, she says she is in favor of the right to abortion.

Mr. Macron wrote on Twitter on Friday that abortion was “a fundamental right for all women” that “must be protected.” In a statement, France’s foreign ministry called upon federal authorities in the U.S. “to do everything possible to protect the right to abortion.”