In a 6-3 decision on Friday, the U.S. Supreme Courtoverturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had secured the federal right to obtain an abortion for the last 50 years — paving the way for a patchwork of state laws on reproductive rights.

Even before the decision leaked this spring, economists have looked to a narrow window of time in the early 1970s for hints about what America might look like with the decision now overturned.

That closely watched window began in 1970 when five states — Alaska, California, Hawaii, New York, and Washington — stepped to the front of that era’s debate and legalized elective abortion.

The Supreme Court extended those rights across the country just three years later with the Roe v. Wade decision, which found the Constitution's guarantee of privacy protects the right to an abortion.

Since then, economists have been keenly focused on that three-year window because abortion was legal in some places but not in others — the exact scenario that experts are expecting in the months and years ahead. Economists say 1970-1972 is especially illuminating because, according to Middlebury College economist Caitlin Myers, it’s “a very narrow window when abortion is legal in some places and not others and interstate travel matters.”

The years 1970-1972 “afforded social scientists a quite nice, what we call, natural experiment,” Myers added in a recent interview before Friday's decision was handed down.

Myers spearheaded an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court last year arguing that the legalization of abortion had dramatic effects on the ages when women became mothers, the level of education they attained, and their participation in the labor force.

While many focus on the moral arguments around abortion, Myers and some of her colleagues have long studied the economic implications. Myers says the evidence is overwhelming that having at least some access to abortion from 1970 to 1972 began to help women’s economic lives — a trend that increased in 1973 and beyond.