LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — After the Supreme Court made the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, more than a dozen states have banned or restricted abortions through trigger laws.
Protesters once again returned to the U.S. Supreme Court after the justices sent the issue of abortion back to the individual states.
The landmark decision that was made will have impacts for months and even years to come.
While the ruling did not directly change any other precedents, John DiPippa, UALR's Bowen Law School Dean Emeritus said that it opened the door for new challenges to things like same-sex intimacy, same-sex marriage, and access to contraceptives.
"This Dobbs case opens them up to this same sort of challenge that the court got it wrong the first time," said DiPippa.
Since Arkansas was one of the states with a trigger law, we have already begun to see the changes.
"Right now, women still have access to Plan B contraceptives, sometimes called "morning after pills," but there has been a move by anti-abortion people to classify those as abortion drugs," said DiPippa.
According to DiPippa, he said that right now we're in legally uncharted territory.
There has been many unanswered questions so far about whether it's legal to cross state lines to get an abortion or have mail-order prescriptions delivered to your home from another state.
Under federal law, state-to-state commerce is something only Congress can regulate. The states aren't allowed to make their own rules, but with a shift in power on Capitol Hill, federal lawmakers could.
"If states prevent people from accessing information or drugs through the mail then the question is "Does that burden commerce?" Even so, congress could legislate to prevent states from doing that, but congress could also allow states," said DiPippa.
On Sunday, Governor Asa Hutchinson addressed the issue of contraceptive access in Arkansas.
"And so in Arkansas, the right to contraception is important. It's recognized, it's not going to be touched. And that's that's the outcome here," said Governor Asa Hutchinson.
In 2015, Governor Hutchinson signed a law that prohibited Arkansas doctors from being able to prescribe abortion pills via telemedicine visits.