The Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade (1973), ruled that the government cannot interfere with a woman's pregnancy during the first trimester. In this decision, the majority argued that the right to privacy under the 14th Amendment applied to a woman's health decisions concerning her pregnancy prior during the first trimester. When Pennsylvania created laws in the 1980s that placed legal regulations on a woman seeking an abortion, several abortion providers sued the governor. This resulted in the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) which changed the trimester metric to one of "undue burden."

Essentially, states can create and enact just about any abortion-related law as long as it passes the "undue burden" test." In the Casey ruling, an undue burden is defined as a law or regulation that is designed to create or results in "a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability." In short, laws concerning abortions are constitutional as long as they do not make it too difficult for a pregnant person to access abortion services.