We use cookies to enhance site functionality and improve your experience.
By selecting "Accept All," you agree. We respect your privacy.

How Partisan Gerrymandering Limits Access To Reproductive Freedom

Gerrymandered legislatures target reproductive freedom in North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kansas.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022, which stripped Americans’ constitutional protections for abortion rights they had held for a half-century, gerrymandered state legislatures have rushed to impose harsh and
extremely unpopular bans on abortion. Now, 13 states have total abortion bans, and seven more ban abortion after 18 weeks. In North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, legislators wielded power with the help of manipulated electoral maps and passed new bans following Dobbs. In Kansas, gerrymandering enabled anti-choice lawmakers to override the governor’s veto to enact new reproductive restrictions. Across the country, partisan map-drawing has become a crucial element in the campaign to roll back reproductive freedom and silence the majority of Americans who support it.

Gerrymandering enables legislatures to be unaccountable to their voters, incentivizing them to pass unpopular measures that restrict reproductive freedoms.

Partisan gerrymandering is the deliberate manipulation of district boundaries to entrench one party’s power, and is one of the most potent threats to American democracy today. Through the bad faith practices of “packing” and “cracking,” map-drawers cluster opposition voters into
just a few districts or scatter them across many, minimizing their impact and ensuring that election outcomes remain skewed no matter how citizens vote. The result is a political system increasingly insulated from accountability. Gerrymandering breeds polarization, shields incumbents from competition, and severs the link between public opinion and public policy. When legislators know they cannot be voted out, they feel free to advance deeply unpopular agendas, including draconian abortion bans that endanger women’s health, undermine personal freedom, and defy the will of the voters.

Across the country, Republican-led legislatures have engineered districts that guaranteed Republican control even when a majority of voters chose otherwise, resulting in manufactured, illegitimate majorities. In at least five states—North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kansas—these gerrymandered legislatures have used their illegitimate power to pass
abortion bans or restrictions. In each case, the majority party’s inflated seat shares were critical in breaking filibusters, overriding vetoes, and overcoming defections to pass laws the public overwhelmingly opposed. These bans have already caused devastating real-world consequences, including denying women essential medical care, forcing them to travel across state lines, and compelling them into dangerous or unwanted pregnancies.

In North Carolina, gerrymandered supermajorities enabled legislators to override a veto and impose an unpopular abortion ban.

In the wake of the Dobbs decision in 2023, North Carolina passed a law, SB 201, that bans abortion after 12 weeks and forces patients to attend the same clinic twice within 72 hours, a requirement that is especially cruel for those traveling from out of state. In the month after the law took effect, abortions in North Carolina fell by 31%.2 The already limited number of 14
clinics were overwhelmed, resulting in delays in care for many women; such delays could result in the pregnancy advancing beyond the legal limit to receive the procedure, resulting in denial of care.3

This outcome was directly enabled by gerrymandering. After overriding Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s veto, Republican lawmakers passed the ban with exactly the three-fifths majorities required in both chambers.

The maps upon which legislators were elected in 2022, though partially improved through litigation, gave Republicans enough unearned power to pass SB 20. Upon challenge by NRF and others to the state’s congressional, Senate, and House maps for being unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders in Harper v. Hall, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that partisan
gerrymandering violates the state Constitution. The court ordered that both congressional and legislative maps be redrawn to ensure partisan fairness, and the North Carolina General Assembly proposed remedial House, Senate, and congressional plans. While a state trial court rejected the remedial congressional map and a bipartisan compromise was reached on the state House map, the court allowed the still-unconstitutional state Senate map to be used in the 2022 elections, over the plaintiffs’ objection. In the end, the 2022 elections took place using a fair congressional map, a compromise state House map, and the legislatively-enacted state Senate map. Despite the partially improved legislative maps, Republicans nonetheless won 30 of 50 Senate seats with barely more than half of the statewide vote.4

This manufactured legislative majority silenced the 60% of North Carolinians who opposed the 2023 abortion ban.5Even when Democrats won a majority of votes statewide in the 2024 elections, gerrymandered maps locked in Republican control of the legislature. North Carolina’s maps now virtually guarantee minority rule—and the erosion of reproductive freedom is one of its starkest results.

In Indiana, rigged maps gave Republicans the votes needed to enact one of the nation’s harshest abortion bans.

Indiana offers one of the clearest examples of how gerrymandering enables extreme policy outcomes. After its sweeping abortion ban took effect in 2023, the number of abortions in the state plummeted by 98%. Doctors now face up to six years in prison for providing care, and some hesitate even in life-threatening situations.6 The chilling effect has been immediate and devastating.

Republicans hold supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, built on unfair maps. In 2020, Republicans captured 40 of 50 Senate seats with just 57% of the vote, and 71 of 100 House seats with 60% of the vote.7 According to a non-partisan analysis by PlanScore, the state Senate’s Efficiency Gap is over 12 percentage points in favor of Republicans, indicating that Republican voters are far more efficiently distributed in the map than Democratic ones, in a way that favors Republicans 98% of the time.8 This structural advantage insulated legislators from political consequences and emboldened them to enact one of the nation’s harshest bans, despite 64% of Hoosiers opposing it.9 Gerrymandering has transformed Indiana’s legislature into an unaccountable body capable of defying both science and popular will.

In Georgia, manipulated districts gave Republicans just enough seats to push a deadly six-week abortion ban through.

Georgia’s 2018 six-week abortion ban shows the deadly consequences of gerrymandered extremism. Before the ban took effect, Georgia averaged 4,400 abortions a month; after, that number dropped nearly in half to 2,400.10 The toll on women’s lives has been harrowing. Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman forced to travel out of state for care, died after doctors delayed treatment out of fear of prosecution.11 Another woman was kept on life support for a nonviable pregnancy against her family’s wishes.12

This cruelty is the legacy of gerrymandering. In 2018, Republicans won 105 House seats out of 180 with just 54% of the vote, eight more than they would have under a fair map. Those extra seats provided the razor-thin margin needed to pass the abortion ban.13 Because of gerrymandering, thousands of women were stripped of their reproductive autonomy.

In South Carolina, Republicans used a gerrymandered advantage to narrowly break a filibuster and pass a six-week ban.

South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban, enacted in 2023, is pushing the state’s healthcare system to the brink. OB-GYN residency applications have dropped nearly 6%,14 and over a tenth of counties lack any prenatal care provider.15 Women have been forced to carry nonviable pregnancies for weeks, risking their lives while doctors fear legal retribution.

Once again, these outcomes were facilitated by gerrymandering. The state Senate map is skewed in Republicans’ favor, giving them two seats more than appropriate given their statewide vote share.16 Those extra seats were exactly what the party needed to overcome a filibuster and pass the ban, despite defections from the Republican women in the Senate. By
engineering safe districts, Republican leaders secured passage of one of the nation’s most punitive abortion laws.

In Kansas, a gerrymandered legislature defied a statewide pro-choice vote and forced through new restrictions.

In Kansas, voters made their stance unmistakable in 2022 when 59% chose to protect abortion rights in a statewide referendum.17 Yet, just two years later, a gerrymandered legislature ignored that mandate and passed HB 2749, a law forcing doctors to interrogate patients about why they seek abortions and to report those answers to the state.18

Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed the measure, but the Republican-led legislature overrode her veto by the bare minimum two-thirds majorities in both chambers— margins that were made possible only through unrepresentative maps. Republicans hold 70% of the Kansas House despite winning just 63% of the vote in 2022, and they control nearly three-quarters of the Senate with similar numbers.19 One non-partisan analysis of the state Senate map’s Efficiency Gap found it to be “more skewed” than 96% of plans nationwide.20 These artificial margins empowered the legislature to defy the clear will of Kansas voters—resulting in legislation that imposes intrusive, demeaning restrictions that endanger patient privacy and
dignity.

Across North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kansas, legislatures that have adopted measures to restrict reproductive rights have been enabled by gerrymandering.

When a party can consistently achieve large legislative majorities regardless of their actual vote share, it empowers them to govern without concern for the will of their constituents. The unpopular and extreme abortion restrictions passed in North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, South
Carolina, and Kansas, in the wake of the Dobbs decision are just some examples of this dynamic.

The connection is clear: gerrymandering has paved the way for attacks on reproductive freedom. When politicians can manipulate district lines to guarantee their own power, they no longer need to listen to voters or respect their rights. The abortion bans and restrictions that Dobbs enabled in North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kansas are not the reasonable result of democratic debate. They are the product of deliberate political engineering designed to impose a radical agenda on unwilling residents.

Fair maps are essential to restoring reproductive freedom and democratic accountability. Until voters can choose their representatives rather than the other way around, lawmakers will be free to ignore the majority’s demand for autonomy, dignity, and choice. Gerrymandering has enabled many legislatures to avoid accountability for unpopular measures, and the rollback of reproductive rights in gerrymandered states post-Dobbs is one of the most devastating consequences.

  1. Session Law 2023-14 (S.B. 20), 2023 Gen. Assemb. (NC 2023) [https://perma.cc/LZL7-J8YW]. ↩︎
  2. ii New data show a 31% decrease in abortions in North Carolina after recent implementation of 12-Week
    ban and In-Person counseling requirement, Guttmacher Inst. (July 10, 2024) [https://perma.cc/CH4Y-
    6NGE]. ↩︎
  3. Abortion clinic locations, Pro-Choice North Carolina (May 5, 2025) [https://perma.cc/SWR7-4QSD]. ↩︎
  4. North Carolina House of Representatives Election Results, NC State Board of Elections (Dec. 4, 2024,
    8:59 PM) [https://perma.cc/N3H5-RUEK]; North Carolina Senate Election Results, NC State Board of
    Elections (Dec. 4, 2024, 8:59 PM) [https://perma.cc/K2G8-9HDQ]. ↩︎
  5. Philip Elliott, Swing states overwhelmingly back abortion rights, new poll finds, Time (May 2, 2024 2:41
    PM) [https://perma.cc/34Q6-WF6T]. ↩︎
  6. Rebecca Hill, The harmful consequences of Indiana’s badly written abortion ban, Limestone Post Mag
    (Oct. 17, 2024) [https://perma.cc/PD5H-XUAQ]. ↩︎
  7. Indiana Election Division, Indiana Election Results: November 3, 2020 (Dec. 17, 2020, 12:21 PM)
    [https://perma.cc/9GDA-RL5Z]. ↩︎
  8. Indiana State Senate Map Adopted October 1st, PlanScore (2022) [https://perma.cc/R77T-ZPXY]. ↩︎
  9. Niki Kelly, Hoosier voters oppose strict abortion ban, new poll finds, Indiana Capital Chronicle (Jun. 24,
    2024, 8:00 AM) [https://perma.cc/7ENB-MFWF]. ↩︎
  10. Kate Brumback & Jeff Amy, Georgia judge strikes down state ban on abortions past 6 weeks into
    pregnancy, PBS News (Sep. 30, 2024, 7:50 PM) [https://perma.cc/94YF-BTZA]. ↩︎
  11. Stephanie McNeal, Abortion bans are literally killing us, Glamour (Sept. 18, 2024)
    [https://perma.cc/UKC9-B8RD]. ↩︎
  12. Mary Kekatos, A pregnant brain-dead woman in Georgia was kept on life support. Experts say it raises
    ethical, legal questions, ABC News (Jun. 19, 2025, 4:04 PM) [https://perma.cc/BX78-N4WR]. ↩︎
  13. Georgia Secretary of State, Election Night Reporting: House of Representatives (January 2, 2025, 2:14
    PM) [https://perma.cc/75ED-XRSP]. ↩︎
  14. Kendal Orgera & Atul Grover, States with abortion bans see continued decrease in U.S. MD Senior residency Applicants, AAMC Research and Action Institute (May 9, 2024). [https://perma.cc/K6VL-
    F5AX]. ↩︎
  15. Id. ↩︎
  16. South Carolina Election Commission, 2020 Statewide General Election (June 30, 2021, 8:42 AM)
    [https://perma.cc/VL8H-AXC9]. ↩︎
  17. Dylan Lysen, Laura Ziegler & Blaise Mesa, Voters in Kansas decide to keep abortion legal in the state,
    rejecting an amendment, NPR (Aug. 3, 2022, 2:18 AM) [https://perma.cc/X8AD-LM46]. ↩︎
  18. About, Guttmacher Institute (Dec. 5, 2024) [https://perma.cc/P3UN-FAWH]. ↩︎
  19. Kansas Secretary of State, Kansas House of Representatives Elections Results (2022)
    [https://perma.cc/49TB-8ZVW]  ↩︎
  20. Kansas 2024 Redistricting Plan: State Senate, PlanScore [https://perma.cc/5SW4-VHUG]. ↩︎