Trump victory could imperil Roe v. Wade abortion ruling

If a reconfigured high court did overturn it, the likely outcome would be a patchwork map: some states protecting abortion access, others enacting tough bans, and many struggling over what new limits they might impose.

Grimes was alluding to the fact that many states under Republican control already have forced closure of some abortion clinics, confronting some women with the need for long-distance travel in order to obtain an abortion.

Anti-abortion leader Clark Forsythe, acting president and senior counsel for Americans United For Life, predicted that the states would break into three basic categories if Roe were overturned:

Perhaps a dozen states would continue to make abortion widely accessible, another dozen or so would ban virtually all abortions unless the mother's life were at stake, and roughly two-dozen more states would thrash out their response with debate among the public and in the legislatures.

Florida, compared to other Southern states, has a large number of abortion clinics — more than 70, according to the most recent count by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group which supports abortion rights.

Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, said the state legislature has been increasingly hostile to abortion rights, yet she was uncertain what would happen if Roe were overturned.

Nicole Safar, director of government relations for the state's Planned Parenthood affiliate, said a statute has been on the books since 1849 making it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion in Wisconsin.