Reaction to today's Supreme Court decision has been strong and swift on both sides of the argument.
Louisiana Family Forum President Gene Mills says he's been waiting on this day since the Supreme Court handed down the Roe vs. Wade decision in January 1973.
"This is an historic day that I've waited for my entire adult life," Mills said. "After 49 years, five months, and two days, all I can say is: this is a welcome bit of news, and welcome to the post-Roe Louisiana."
While Mills says he believes in a person's right to make his or own decisions, but when a child's life is involved, Mills says that right does not exist.
"When it comes to, with regard to life and human life, that right to terminate no longer exists in the state of Louisiana," Mills says.
ACLU Louisiana executive director Alanah Odoms disagrees.
"The government should not have the right to intervene in a woman's most private decision," Odoms said, adding that today's decision amounts to the loss of the right of privacy. ""The only way these laws can be enforced is if our healthcare and our right to privacy is--really we will be surveilled."
Odoms says today's decision is the latest shot against women in a modern civil rights movement. She says that the Louisiana ACLU and other groups will fight Louisiana's trigger law in court.
"We'll be contemplating a legal strategy to challenge those trigger laws," Odoms said. ""Sadly, this will be a very long road to ensuring that we can get back some of the freedoms and protections for women's health care."
According to Odoms, the battle for abortion rights will expand beyond the courtroom.
"This is something that we will have to approach trifold, and what I mean by that is not just an approach of litigating through the courts at the state level, but also through state-level advocacy as well as organizing," Odoms said. "This is something that we will have to approach trifold, and what I mean by that is not just an approach of litigating through the courts at the state level, but also through state-level advocacy as well as organizing.
"This is something that must activate us. We must be activated to go to the polls and elect individuals who will protect these rights."
Mills, however, says a new era in Louisiana history and American history has begun. Mills says in that new era, the Louisiana Department of Health and local churches need to help women with unwanted pregnancies.
"It's where the information must come down," Mills said. "It's where families reside. It's where that decision and those conflicts must be dealt with, and both must respond at a macro level from the state and at a micro level from your local congregation."
Mills says Louisiana's best days lie ahead now that abortion is illegal in the state.
"The post-Roe generation has begun," Mills said. "A 'respect life' ethic is restored in the state of Louisiana."
