Abortion

The decision is "based on protecting our providers and patients," according to Planned Parenthood of Montana President Martha Fuller.

Attorney General Austin Knudsen argues Montana’s abortion access is “inextricably linked” to the now overturned Roe v. Wade precedent. He first asked the Montana Supreme Court to overturn the state’s 1999 Armstrong precedent earlier this year.

"It's one thing to say that we support unborn children and support mothers, but we aren't just pro-birth, we're pro-life," Montana Catholic Conference Executive Director Matthew Brower says.

Any plan to open clinics on reservations would be fraught with legal, financial, and political hurdles, Indigenous abortion advocates said. And they wondered why many people now asking about the possibility didn’t seem interested in health care access there before abortion rights were threatened nationwide.

Montana politicians lined up on party lines to praise and condemn the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn federal protection of abortion access.

A decades-old precedent will continue to protect abortion access in Montana, for now. But Republican lawmakers are considering pathways to restrict access.

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, reversing Roe v. Wade, the court's five-decade-old decision that guaranteed a woman's right to obtain an abortion.

Aimed at serving a regional "abortion desert," the clinic plans to open, despite the expected overturn of Roe v. Wade. It's become a focal point for abortion debate in the state.

Republicans have two main options if they move to ban abortion in Montana: They can enact a law that will most likely be challenged in the courts, or they can push for a constitutional referendum to change the state’s bill of rights, which would then have to go before voters.

Abortion politics have created a power struggle over the administration of federal family planning dollars in conservative-leaning states.