In the 2012 case Texas Medical Providers Performing Abortion Services v. David Lakey, a US appeals court ruled as constitutional a Texas law that required abortion providers in the state to show women receiving abortions the ultrasound images of their fetuses. The law also required providers to describe the sounds of the fetuses' nascent hearts. In doing so, the court set precedent that ultrasound readings are necessary medical information for pregnant women seeking abortions, increasing the wait-period for women seeking abortions. The decision fueled debates in the early twenty-first century US abouts women's rights to abortions.

In 1976, the US Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which banned the use of federal funding to pay for abortions through Medicaid. In 1976, Illinois Congressman Henry J. Hyde proposed the amendment to the Departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare, Appropriation Act of 1977. In 1980, the US Supreme Court in Harris v. McRae (1980) upheld the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment. Included annually in every Congressional appropriation act after the one passed in 1976, amended versions of the Hyde Amendment have restricted federal funding of abortion services for women participating in Medicaid.

On 30 June 1980, in a five to four decision, the US Supreme Court ruled in the Case Harris v. McRae that the Hyde Amendment of 1976 did not violate the US Constitution. The Hyde Amendment banned the use of federal funding to pay for any abortion services. The US Supreme Court's decision in Harris v. McRae overturned the decision of McRae v. Califano (1980), in which the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York had ruled that the funding restrictions established by the Hyde Amendment violated the US Constitution. After the US Supreme Court's ruling in Harris v. McRae, the Hyde Amendment continued to prohibit federal Medicaid funding for abortion services, limiting the funds available for low-income women seeking abortions.

On 1 July 1976, the US Supreme Court decided in the case Planned Parenthood v. Danforth that provisions of a Missouri law regulating abortion care were unconstitutional. That law, House Bill 1211, restricted abortion care by requiring written consent for each abortion procedure from the pregnant woman as written consent of the woman’s husband if she was married, or the written consent of her parents if she was unmarried and younger than eighteen. House Bill 1211 also required that physicians make efforts to preserve the lives of aborted fetuses. Following the passage of House Bill 1211 in 1974, two physicians and Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri challenged the law. Following the decisions by several lower courts, the US Supreme Court ruled on the case. The US Supreme Court struck down parts of a law that violated the US Constitution and the prior court case Roe v. Wade, and in doing so, they expanded access to abortion care in the US.

In the 1989 case Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the
US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a Missouri law regulating abortion care. The
Missouri law prohibited the use of public facilities, employees, or
funds to provide abortion counseling or services. The law also placed restrictions on physicians who provided
abortions. A group of physicians affected by the law challenged the
constitutionality of certain sections of it. The US federal district
court that first heard the case ruled many of the challenged sections of
the law unconstitutional. The Missouri attorney general then appealed
the case to an US federal appeals court and eventually to the US Supreme
Court in Washington, D.C. In a five to four decision, the US Supreme
Court overturned the decisions of the lower federal courts, ruling that
it was constitutional to prohibit public funds, facilities, and
employees from providing abortion care. In doing so, the Supreme
Court upheld a state law that limited women’s access to abortions
and established a precedent that states could apply restrictions to
abortion care.

In the 1973 court case Doe v. Bolton, the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that a Georgia law regulating abortion was unconstitutional. The Georgia abortion law required women seeking abortions to get approval for the procedure from their personal physician, two consulting physicians, and from a committee at the admitting hospital. Furthermore, under the statutes, only women who had been raped, whose lives were in danger from the pregnancy, or who were carrying fetuses likely to be seriously, permanently malformed were permitted to receive abortions. The US Supreme Court ruled that the Georgia requirements violated the right to privacy implicit in the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Decided on the same day as the abortion case Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton expanded women’s access to abortion by striking down laws that restricted the reasons for which women could receive abortions.

In the 2016 case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the US Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the Texas requirements that abortion providers have admitting privileges at local hospitals and that abortion facilities meet ambulatory surgical center standards. Whole Woman’s Health represented abortion care providers in Texas and brought the case against the commissioner for the Texas Department of State Health Services, John Hellerstedt. In a five to three decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that the requirements of the challenged law, Texas House Bill 2, had forced the majority of abortion care facilities to close. With fewer available facilities, women faced undue burdens of travel time and cost when seeking abortions, restricting their access abortion care. In previous US Supreme Court cases Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court ruled that placing undue burdens on women seeking abortion care was unconstitutional. Upholding those decisions in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the US Supreme Court struck down Texas House Bill 2 and protected women’s access to abortion care.