Angry outcries on one side – and joyous celebrations on the other – erupted with Friday’s anticipated U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the decades-old law guaranteeing women’s ability to get an abortion. 

The ruling on a 2018 Mississippi state law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of gestation effectively overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and returns crafting abortion policy to state legislators.

That means hard work lies ahead, both sides of the debate say.

Revoking the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade will create “enormous geographic gaps in abortion care,” said the Rev. Katey Zeh, a Baptist minister from North Carolina and CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

“Many people seeking abortions will have to leave their homes states, potentially traveling hundreds of miles to reach a provider,” she said in an email. “States like Colorado will likely see an influx of patients, and we’ve already seen the impacts of abortion bans like Texas’ SB-8 on abortion providers in neighboring states.”

Abortion-rights supporters have been preparing for the possibility abortion laws would revert to state control after a Supreme Court draft opinion was leaked to the public in early May.

Anti-abortion advocates, too, have been anticipating the ruling.

“Today is the day to give thanks to God – life wins! #LifeIsAHumanRight #LifeWins #ProLife,” Focus on the Family President Jim Daily reacted to the ruling on Twitter. 

“After nearly a half-century and over 60 million deaths, the horrifying and tragic ruling of Roe has finally been overturned. It was bad law then – and a majority of the Supreme Court has affirmed it is bad law now,” Daly wrote on his group’s website. “No court has the right to deprive a child of the right to live. We celebrate this milestone today and applaud the six justices who have courageously and correctly interpreted the United States Constitution.”

Daly added: “This is a day to give thanks to God. It’s also a day to give thanks to the tens of millions who have marched in the snow and cold on the anniversary of Roe these last fifty years as faithful witnesses to the value of human life. It’s a day, as well, to give thanks to those who have committed their lives and their resources to serving mothers and protecting innocent children.”

At a large event Focus on the Family hosted June 14 with nationally known conservative speakers and live Christian music, syndicated talk show host and Fox News contributor Ben Shapiro disputed arguments that abortion is a right, saying “the right to kill an unborn human being is not in the Constitution.”

“We have this thing called abstinence, we have this thing called marriage, and if you don’t want to have kids, don’t have sex,” he said to a live audience of 1,170 people at the Colorado Springs campus of Christian ministry and another 20,000 watching online.

A short history of Colorado's abortion activism from 1891 to present

The number of abortions has been increasing since 2017 in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based organization research institute that promotes abortion rights.

One in five pregnancies ended in abortion in 2020, the organization reported in a recently released study using data collected from abortion providers. That 20.6% national abortion rate reflects an increase over 2017’s 18.4%.

A total of 930,160 abortions were performed nationwide, up from 862,320 in 2017, the institute added, reversing a 30-year trend of decline.

But anti-abortion advocates are convinced the tide is turning in their direction.

Speakers at the Focus on the Family’s SeeLife rally urged advocates to financially support pregnancy centers and ultrasound equipment, which a 2014 study in California showed led about 5% of women with medium or low certainty of having an abortion to change their mind and complete the pregnancy.

Bishops to Catholic legislators who voted for abortion law: Taking communion is 'sacrilige'

Ultrasound images should be required for women who are pregnant, conservative commentator Candace Owens said in a video interview shown during the event.

“I used to be pro-choice. It wasn’t because I was evil or wanted to murder babies. It was because I was taught the wrong thing,” she said. “You cannot deny what is in your face. It destroys the lie with such a magnitude that you can’t come back from it.”

Zeh, the minister and author of a new book, “A Complicated Choice: Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-Choice Movement,” called for more abortion providers to be trained to fill the need in states that will uphold abortion rights.

She also advocated for women seeking abortions to have not only have assistance with paying for the procedure but also for expenses, such as travel, meals, lodging and childcare.

“Both addressing the immediate needs of people who need abortion care and strategizing how we can work together to create a world in which every person lives with reproductive freedom and dignity will be essential in the days, months and year ahead,” Zeh said.

Colorado is among four states – plus the District of Columbia – that have the most lenient codification of abortion operations throughout an entire pregnancy without state interference.

On the other hand, four states have passed a constitutional amendment to not secure or protect abortion rights or use public funds for abortion.

In all, 16 states and D.C. have abortion-rights policies, 17 states are poised to restrict abortion procedures and 17 states neither ban nor protect the legality of abortion.

While 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances and 37% say it should be illegal in all or most circumstances, according to a Pew study conducted earlier this year, public sentiment on exceptions – such as how far into the pregnancy an abortion can occur or whether rape and incent are considerations – introduces shades of gray into the issue.

One issue both sides can agree on: anti-abortion and abortion-rights groups will “get more vocal” in campaigning for state laws that back their beliefs.