On June 24, 2022, The United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a 49-year-old ruling that declared constitutional rights to abortion.
The initial lawsuit was filed in 1973 by Jane Roe. As an unmarried pregnant woman, she wished to terminate her pregnancy but was unable to do so because of the vagueness of abortion laws in Texas. James H. Hallford, a doctor already under legal scrutiny for performing two other abortions, joined Roe as a physician-intervenor (someone who joins the case as an unoriginal party in the case).
The discourse in the 1973 trial focused on the application of the Fourteenth Amendment, which gives all people born or naturalized in the United States equal protection of the law. Roe challenged Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County at that time, by claiming that the Amendment would allow her personal privacy to “marital, familial, and sexual privacy guaranteed by the Bill of Rights,” as written by Laura Temme in her case summary on FindLaw.com. Wade defended that prenatal (fetal) rights were at stake.
The Supreme Court decided in 1973 that prohibiting abortion access was more harmful than that latter. They concluded that the physical and mental health, financial stability and social image of pregnant persons were more critically important than government interference on someone’s decision to terminate a pregnancy.
Nearly 50 years later, the Supreme Court overturned this decision and left abortion rights up to the states, but not before a major slip. On May 2, 2022, a draft opinion was leaked containing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Before the formal announcement was made in June, there was already a global uproar about the leaked draft.
Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz published “What Does the End of Roe Mean? Key Questions and Answers” the next day on The New York Times where they made conjectures about the future of abortion rights now that the states are in control of them. They presumed approximately 25 states, half of the nation, would instill abortion restrictions or bans. The map they provided shaded in mainly the south-eastern portion of the U.S.
On July 8, 2022, The White House posted a fact sheet on their website concerning protection for access to reproductive healthcare procedures. They asserted that the United States Department of Health and Human Services would protect access to abortion and contraceptives, emergency medical care, prevent privacy violations by protecting confidential health information and more. See the release here.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota have completely banned abortions with trigger laws that went into place as soon as the overturn was called. Nineteen other states are close to following suit with other trigger bans and preexisting restrictions.
Ten other states currently protect abortion rights, and California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington provide expanded access for those seeking abortions.
Speaking personally now, I know a lot of people who are outraged by this decision. For many, it has shown that the government is not working for the people anymore, as a Gallup poll showed that 55% of Americans are pro-choice. According to the CDC, nearly 630 thousand abortion procedures were reported in 2019, with 92.7% occurring at less than 13 weeks gestation.
Women and those who are able to become pregnant fear for their very futures. There have been testaments where people who desire to have children fear the state of reproductive health too much to even try at this point.
LGBTQ+ individuals even fear for their very right to be who they are because of oppressive speech straight from members of the Supreme Court, with Justice Clarence Thomas directly condemning gay rights statutes.
Think about your neighbors.
