What Our Mothers Had That We Don’t

Nov 5

Written by Comma

    
    Published November 5, 2026
  
    5 min read
  
    Written By Amanda Morin

— THE SHORT VERSION

Roe v. Wade gave our mothers’ generation a nationwide constitutional right to abortion before viability. Casey later swapped the trimester framework for an “undue burden” standard.
Dobbs overturned Roe in 2022. Access now depends on your state, with 13 states enforcing near-total bans.
The fallout goes beyond abortion: more travel for care, legal uncertainty for doctors treating pregnancy complications, lost Medicaid access at Planned Parenthood, and possible OB-GYN shortages.
Reproductive data is also at risk, since most period trackers aren’t covered by HIPAA. Sara is built with HIPAA-aligned safeguards.
Voters still shape these laws. Abortion-related measures were on the ballot in four states this cycle.

Our Rights vs. Our Mothers’ Rights

Ask your mom what reproductive rights looked like when she was your age.

Depending on when she grew up, her answer might surprise you. For nearly 50 years, women across the United States lived with a federal constitutional right to abortion. Today, many of us are navigating reproductive healthcare with fewer federal protections than the generation that raised us.

It's a strange reality to sit with. We tend to think of progress as something that moves forward, with each generation inheriting more opportunities, more protections, and more autonomy than the one before it. But history doesn't always work that way.

As we reflect on the midterm elections, it's worth understanding the inflection point reproductive healthcare has reached. Here’s how we got here, what has changed, and what these changes mean for our health.

What Roe Gave Our Mothers

On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade recognized that the decision whether to continue or end a pregnancy belongs to the individual, not the government. Roe held that the specific guarantee of liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects individual privacy, includes the right to abortion prior to fetal viability.

Roe established a trimester framework:

First trimester (about weeks 1 to 12): The decision belonged to a woman and her doctor. The state could not step in.
Second trimester, up to viability: States could regulate abortion, but only in ways reasonably related to protecting the woman's health, like rules about who could perform the procedure and where.
After viability (when a fetus could survive outside the womb): States could restrict or ban abortion to protect potential life, with exceptions to protect the woman's life or health.

Essentially, Roe guaranteed that early in pregnancy, the choice was yours, no matter which state you lived in. In 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey replaced this framework with a viability standard. States could regulate abortion before viability, as long as those restrictions did not create an undue burden, but they could not ban it outright.

For nearly five decades, this meant that no matter which state you lived in, there was a nationwide constitutional protection against abortion bans before viability.

What Was Taken Away

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, ending nearly 50 years of federal constitutional protection for abortion.

The ruling eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, giving states broad authority to establish their own abortion laws, including bans before viability.

The result is a country where access to reproductive healthcare depends on your zip code:

13 states enforce near-total abortion bans, with limited exceptions.
Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Iowa ban abortion at approximately six weeks, often before someone even realizes they’re pregnant.
Confusion is growing. In a 2026 survey, 53% of reproductive-age women in states with bans said they would not know where to go if they needed an abortion, up from 43% in 2024.

Within just 100 days of the Dobbs decision, 66 clinics across 15 states had stopped providing abortions.

Our mothers had a nationwide constitutional protection. Today, we have a patchwork of state laws, and the consequences extend far beyond abortion itself.

The Implications Go Beyond Abortion

When Roe was overturned in 2022, the consequences extended far beyond the loss of a constitutional right. The effects have reached hospitals, doctors' offices, and families across the country, reshaping not only access to abortion but also the broader landscape of reproductive healthcare.

Research compiled by the Guttmacher Institute highlights several consequences:

More people are being forced to travel for healthcare. By the first half of 2023, nearly 1 in 5 abortion patients traveled out of state, compared with 1 in 10 in 2020. For someone without reliable transportation, childcare, paid time off, or the financial means to travel, accessing care can become significantly more difficult.
Doctors are facing legal uncertainty when treating pregnancy complications. In states with abortion bans, physicians have reported delaying medically necessary care out of fear of legal consequences. In one national survey, 40% of OB-GYNs in states with bans reported constraints on their ability to manage miscarriages and other pregnancy-related emergencies.
- In June 2025, the federal government rescinded 2022 guidance that told hospitals emergency abortion care is protected under federal law (EMTALA), even in states with bans.
Over a million patients lost Medicaid coverage at Planned Parenthood. A 2025 federal law cut Medicaid payments for one year to large abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, which also offers birth control, cancer screenings and STI testing. Planned Parenthood said more than 1.1 million patients could no longer use Medicaid at its health centers.
Maternity care shortages could worsen. In a study of 54 OB-GYNs practicing in states with total abortion bans, approximately 60% had considered leaving their state, and 11% had already done so. Losing providers can affect access to routine prenatal care, childbirth services, and emergency treatment.
Existing healthcare inequities are being compounded. People who cannot afford to travel face greater barriers, particularly in communities already experiencing limited healthcare access. The ability to receive timely reproductive care should not depend on someone's income or where they live.

These aren't just legal consequences. They have implications for people's health, financial stability, educational opportunities, and ability to make decisions about their own futures.

A New Concern Our Mothers Didn’t Have: Our Data

There’s another dimension to reproductive autonomy that looks very different today: our digital health information.

Our mothers may have tracked their cycles on paper calendars. We track ours on our phones, and after Dobbs that data started to feel very different.

Most consumer period-tracking apps aren't covered by HIPAA, raising important questions about how sensitive reproductive health data is collected, shared, and protected. That’s why we built Sara the way we did.

Menstrual data is medical data, and we believe it deserves medical-grade protection. Sara was built with HIPAA-aligned privacy safeguards because understanding your reproductive health shouldn't mean compromising your privacy.

What's Still in Our Hands?

Our mothers’ generation didn't have perfect reproductive freedom. Even under Roe, access to care was far from equal. But they had a nationwide constitutional protection that our generation no longer has.

Since Dobbs, reproductive healthcare laws have continued to evolve, and voters have played a role in shaping them. In 2024, measures designed to protect abortion rights passed in seven of the ten states where they appeared on the ballot.

In the 2026 midterms, four states had abortion-related measures on the ballot, and voters in three of them chose to protect access. Nevada and Virginia passed measures establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Missouri voters rejected Amendment 3, which would have repealed the reproductive freedom protections they approved in 2024, so those protections stay in place. In Idaho, voters rejected Proposition 1, which would have established a right to abortion, leaving the state’s near-total ban intact.

Wherever you live, take a few minutes to understand the reproductive healthcare laws in your state. And maybe call your mom, grandmother, or another trusted woman in your life. Ask her what reproductive healthcare looked like when she was your age, and what changes she's witnessed.

Because the rights our mothers fought for aren't necessarily the rights we've inherited. And the decisions made today will shape the healthcare landscape future generations grow up in.