In addition to the Arkansas abortion ban, South Carolina enacted a ban on abortion at six weeks of pregnancy in February. Another 15 states have seen similar legislation introduced so far this year. None of the total or six-week abortion bans that have been signed into law are in effect. But the lawmakers who pushed for them never expected them to take effect immediately. Rather, the bans serve a longer-term strategy, where the goal is to test the limits of what the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority may allow, and to lay the groundwork for a day when federal constitutional protections for abortion are weakened or eliminated entirely.