Updated for 2024 by Megan Burbank Previous reporting from Megan Burbank, Jessie McKenna, and Marti McKenna
Between the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and anti-abortion restrictions that preceded it and came after, it’s a challenging time to be a person seeking abortion care. But Washington was already diverging from national trends toward anti-abortion legislation before Roe was overturned, and since Dobbs, that contrast has only deepened.
As states move to ban or limit abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s reversal, western states including Washington are upholding abortion access for the rest of the country. That’s the motivation behind an ambitious package of abortion access policies California’s state legislature passed in August, including expedited licensure for abortion providers, a California Reproductive Health Service Corps aimed at nurturing a diverse pool of reproductive health care workers, and expanded privacy protections for medical records. It’s just one set of policies that represents major efforts among advocates and policymakers in western states to preserve and expand protections once guaranteed under Roe. Three months after Roe was overturned, reproductive health policy advocates from California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington gathered virtually to discuss the road ahead.
