As anticipated, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has overruled Roe v. Wade and returned the legality of abortion to the states. The implications of Dobbs for other constitutionally protected rights to sexual liberty, from same-sex marriage to contraception, will be the subject of another editorial. This editorial addresses the conflicts that will arise as states where abortion is outlawed try to prevent women from traveling out of state to obtain one and try to prevent the importation and use of drugs to terminate pregnancy at home.

Among the angry and dismayed reactions to Dobbs, there has been a certain amount of optimistic whistling past the graveyard that abortion will remain partly available in defiance of state criminalization for two reasons. First, women of sufficient means will be able to travel to jurisdictions where terminating their pregnancy is lawful. Second, mifepristone/misoprostol and other oral abortifacient drugs can be prescribed remotely by telemedicine, sold over the internet, and self-administered at home. We think that these predictions are too optimistic because they do not take account of the permitted extraterritorial scope of state criminal laws.