The highly anticipated U.S. Supreme Court opinion out today means the end of Roe v. Wade, putting the District on shaky ground when it comes to abortion rights.

Why it matters: Despite being solidly blue, the city is uniquely susceptible to a rollback in abortion access. Congress has the final say over the District's laws, and already bans the city from spending local dollars on abortions for low-income residents.

Yes, but: D.C. officials have made it clear that they will push to keep abortion legal in the District. If a Republican Congress did pass a law to ban D.C.'s abortion access, President Biden would likely veto it.

State of play in the region: In Virginia, abortion is legal up to the 25th week of pregnancy and will remain accessible for the foreseeable future.

• Abortion is also protected under state law in Maryland, and Democratic lawmakers further expanded access this year.

Zoom out: D.C. and Maryland have long been safe havens for abortions for locals and those coming from states with restrictive abortion laws.

• 69% of abortions performed in D.C. in 2019 were for out-of-state residents, per the Kaiser Family Foundation.
• And within 24 hours of the leaked Supreme Court draft coming out earlier this year, the DC Abortion Fund received more than $64,000 in donations, enough to cover hundreds of abortions.

What they're saying: Abortion access is not expected to immediately change in the area, says Caitlin Blunnie, an outreach and culture manager at ReproAction, where she provides information on self-managed abortion through the pill Misoprostol.

• "In the D.C. area, the legal risk [of ordering the pill online] doesn't look the same as it does in other parts of the U.S.," Blunnie says. That means people can easily use telehealth or even websites specifically for ordering Misoprostol for themselves or others without legal repercussions.
• On top of that, she adds that there are few places where people later in their pregnancies can receive an abortion and D.C. is one of them.

For these reasons, Blunnie does suspect the area may continue to serve as a haven for abortion access and expects to see an influx of people coming to the area to seek abortions.

The bottom line: People in the D.C. region are much more protected by local abortion laws than in other parts of the country.