“The amendment, frequently framed as a compromise between Democrats and Republicans, was never a compromise for abortion rights advocates, said Claire McKinney, an assistant professor at the College of William and Mary who studies reproductive politics.
For a lot of reproductive rights organizations, it’s actually the first sign of real failure of protecting abortion rights,” McKinney said. “[It] made very clear that the state was going to take no obligation to make sure that women actually had access” to an abortion.”
