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The United States anti-abortion movement[a] is a movement in the United States that opposes induced abortion and advocates for the protection of fetal life. Advocates support legal prohibition or restriction on ethical, moral, or religious grounds, arguing that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote, embryo or fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. The anti-abortion movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body.[1] There are diverse arguments and rationales for the anti-abortion stance. Some allow for some permissible abortions, including therapeutic abortions, in exceptional circumstances such as incest, rape, severe fetal defects, or when the woman's health is at risk.
Before the Supreme Court 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, anti-abortion views predominated and found expression in state laws which prohibited or restricted abortions in a variety of ways. (See Abortion in the United States.) The anti-abortion movement became politically active and dedicated to the reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision, which struck down most state laws restricting abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.[2][3] In the United States, the movement is associated with several Christian religious groups, especially the Catholic Church and Evangelical churches, and is frequently, but not exclusively, allied with the Republican Party.[4][5] The movement is also supported by secular organizations (such as Secular Pro-Life) and non-mainstream anti-abortion feminists.[6] The movement has campaigned to reverse Roe v. Wade and to promote legislative changes or constitutional amendments, such as the Human Life Amendment, that prohibit or at least broadly restrict abortion.[1]
On the other side of the abortion debate in the United States is the abortion-rights movement (also called the pro-choice movement), which argues that pregnant women should have the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, ending federal abortion rights and allowing individual states to regulate their own abortion laws.[7]
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