One of the most important U.S. rulings regarding abortion laws was the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade. The ruling from this case showed that any “statute that prohibited abortion” (Goldman 1986) or “statutes that imposed such stringent requirements on abortion as to make abortion unavailable” (Goldman 1986) were unconstitutional. This was extremely beneficial to women because it legalized abortion on a national level. However, the case did not totally relax abortion laws as the U.S. Supreme Court said that abortions “could be interfered with only if the state could show a compelling interest” (Goldman 1986). In addition to this restriction, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed down abortion decisions by separating them by the trimesters of pregnancy. The laws stated that in the first trimester, “a woman has a virtually unfettered right to have an abortion” (Goldman 1986). However, during the second trimester, abortions could be refused as long as the reasons “are limited to preservation and protection of maternal health” (Goldman 1986). Lastly, in the third trimester, states could “proscribe abortion except where necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother” 

Another monumental event for abortion laws was the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In this case, Planned Parenthood challenged Pennsylvania’s 1982 Abortion Control Act, which further restricted abortion regulations. Additionally, rulings from the Roe v. Wade case were revisited, and the result was that “Roe v. Wade was affirmed but that the bulk of the Pennsylvania law was constitutional nonetheless” (McBride). This supported that states could not outright prevent women from getting abortions, but it also gave states more power to regulate abortions. The original Roe v. Wade trimester ruling changed so that instead, abortions could not be banned before a fetus is viable”(the point at which the fetus is able to sustain life outside the womb)” (McBride).  This weakened abortion regulation restrictions because states could now have “regulations affecting the first trimester, but only to safeguard a woman's health” (McBride). Regarding heartbeat bills, this change was very significant because states now had the opportunity to prevent abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, only halfway into the first trimester.

Heartbeat bills are very controversial, and many people disapprove of them because according to the Roe v. Wade ruling, the bills should be unconstitutional. Roe v. Wade does not allow abortions to be banned before the viability point, but with heartbeat bills stopping abortions as early as six weeks, they contradict this ruling because a fetus often becomes viable “slightly before the third trimester”(McBride). With the first heartbeat bill only “introduced in Ohio in 2011” (Ravitz, 2019), they are fairly new in the United States. In the short time that they have been around, many of them have been proposed. So far in 2019, “lawmakers in 15 states have lined up to introduce fetal heartbeat legislation” (Ravitz, 2019). Most of these bills are not successful, but Ohio is one of the few states where it has passed. Jamieson Gordon of Ohio Right to Life said “the ultimate goal is to get Roe v. Wade overturned” (Ravitz, 2019). Thus with the rise of heartbeat bills, it is evident that the effort to ban abortions is getting much stronger, but Pro-life advocates must successfully overturn Roe v. Wade.