Roe v. Wade anniversary: US states pass 318 pro-life laws since 2010

The laws include the 'No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act' and the 'Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act'

A proliferation of pro-life state laws means Roe v. Wade has a 'different impact for different women' (Getty)

Anti-abortion activists have been successful at a US state level, passing 318 pro-life laws since 2010 with the aim of increasingly restricting reproductive rights for women.

These laws include the so-called No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

“Which brings us to a grand staggering total of more than a thousand restrictions enacted at the state level since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973,” Andea Miller, president for the National Institute for Reproductive Health added, as reported by Daily Kos.

US statehouses proposed 400 bills to restrict abortion access in 2015. According to Elizabeth Nash, Senior State Issues Associate at the Guttmacher Institute, 57 of those bills were made into law in 2015.

Friday marks the 43rd anniversary of historic landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a women's right to choose.

A large organized anti-abortion rally called “March For Life” will take place in Washington D.C. today.

One Republican supporting the rally on Friday will be Chris Smith of New Jersey, who wrote in the right-wing Washington Examiner that since 1973 “at least 58 million children have been killed by abortion” - amounting to the entire population of England.

“There is growing recognition that post-abortion women are co-victims, often suffering emotional pain in silence, in need of healing and unconditional love. Many of these women today are silent no more and have become courageous, outspoken defenders of life,” Mr Smith wrote.

However, reports show that elective abortion rates are at a record low.

Jessica Mason Pieko, senior legal analyst at RH Reality Check, said the proliferation of anti-abortion laws at a state level means that federal law Roe v Wade means “different things for different women” across the country.

“43 years out, we are in a position where the anniversary represents as much of a missed opportunity and a missed promise [as much as it represents progress],” she told The Independent.

She pointed to the case of Anna Yocca, a 31-year-old woman from Tennessee who faces a life sentence of attempted murder for a failed self-induced abortion.

“This is unheard of. We didn’t prosecute women, even before Roe v. Wade,” she said.

Federal laws restricting abortions have been less successful due to “solid Democratic leadership”, she said.

Vermont senator and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders said today that it is “unacceptable” that Republicans want to dictate “difficult and personal” choices for women.

“That right belongs to the woman, her family and her doctor – not the federal or state government,” he said.