Roe v Wade and the Democrats

[StiffyByngsDogBartholomew]

Could someone more versed in US politics advise. This is a genuine question not looking for political debate over Trump or abortion rights, just factual.
Roe v Wade was overturned in June 2022 with a Democrat president and Kamala Harris as VP. It's now late 2024 and they haven't resolved the issue.

If sorting out abortion rights was one of the top items of this election, what was standing in the way of the democrats sorting this out in the last two years ? I'm genuinely wondering whether there was something in the way of getting it sorted out or if they just didn't consider it important until it became a key question for voters. I don't really know enough about the US political system to understand why this wasn't done before.

Democrats don't control the house of representatives so they can't get legislation passed that would codify abortion rights in law.

Republicans have, for now, pushed the issue to the individual states which have varying political parties in charge - many who have different parties controlling the Governorship than state legislatures.

Some states (even conservative ones) have passed state constitutional amendments guaranteeing the right to abortion. These state constitutional amendments could be superseded by federal law if the federal government decided to pass a federal abortion ban.

Other states have enacted almost total bans on abortion even to the point where hospitals are refusing the end ectopic pregnancies until the mother is in critical condition with conditions like sepsis.

So it is complicated but the jest of it is that Democrats haven't had enough control to get anything done at a federal level.

Thankyou :)

While he was President, Trump replaced three outgoing members of the Supreme court with judges who were known for their pro-life stance, a move which was instrumental in being able to overturn Roe v Wade. I don't think the next vacancy is until 2026, when of course he will be President again.