If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, it could alter the course of pregnancy for 300,000 people who will have already conceived in "trigger law" states.
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the decision would most immediately and directly affect more than 300,000 women who are pregnant now or will be before July in the 13 states with so-called trigger laws. That's the number of people who — according to an NBC News analysis of 2017 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights — would see their states' abortion policies change while they're still at points in pregnancy when they might have otherwise been eligible for abortions. The laws that determine their options, in other words, would transform almost overnight. Because the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion published by Politico last week is just that — a draft — conversations about its implications have stayed in the realm of hypotheticals. But it doesn't feel hypothetical to Sarah Carpenter, who is six months pregnant in Louisiana. Carpenter said she had a miscarriage in September, and it opened her eyes to how much can go wrong between conception and birth. Relative to that, she said, this pregnancy feels "pretty easy" even though she regularly throws up so forcefully that blood vessels in her face burst. Still, Carpenter worries about worst-case scenarios, as many expectant parents do. That anxiety has been amplified by the prospect of Louisiana's trigger law. "I am now 26 weeks pregnant, very much want this baby, the nursery is done," she said. "But if we go into another anatomy scan and their brain isn't developed or their heart doesn't develop, if there is something that is not compatible with life, what would that be like?" Currently, Louisiana allows abortions up to 22 weeks, with exceptions after that if the baby won't survive or there's a severe threat to the mother's physical health. Carpenter's baby is already viable, though she will likely still be pregnant in late June, when the court's decision is expected. If Roe is overturned, all abortions in Louisiana would become illegal unless…