Members of the Supreme Court have agreed to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which guaranteed abortion rights nationwide, according to an apparently leaked draft opinion obtained by Politico on Monday – potentially upending decades of legal precedent as many states seek to restrict or cut off access to abortion.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in the Mississippi abortion case by late June, when its current term ends.
(Joe Walsh. “Supreme Court Reportedly Plans To Overturn Roe V. Wade, According To Leaked Draft Opinion.” Forbes. May 02, 2022.)
Twenty-two states already have laws in place that would ban most abortions if Roe v. Wade is reversed, according to a report by the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute. The list includes states whose pre-Roe bans on abortion were never repealed, as well as states that passed sweeping abortion restrictions after Roe or enacted “trigger laws” that would automatically ban the procedure as soon as Roe is overturned.
In recent years, many states like Mississippi have passed laws that would ban abortion outright after various points during pregnancy, while other states have passed more technical restrictions on medical clinics that effectively make it difficult to receive an abortion. Historically, federal judges have swiftly blocked laws that violate Roe v. Wade shortly after their passage, but last year, the Supreme Court seemed to be more open to abortion restrictions that clash with legal precedent.
In September, the court did not immediately strike down a Texas law that banned almost all abortions after six weeks, partly due to the law’s unusual structure, which tasked private entities – rather than government officials – with enforcing the ban through civil lawsuits. And in December, several of the Supreme Court’s conservative judges appeared ready to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, setting the stage for either a wholesale end to Roe or a narrower decision that gives states more power to enact tight abortion restrictions.
According to Politico’s reporting, the court appears to have chosen the more sweeping option, opting to strike down Roe entirely. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it would remove the federal guarantee of abortion protection and allow each state to set its own rules.
History Note:
Roe v. Wade is a landmark Supreme Court decision from 1973 that established a constitutional right to abortion.
Roe struck down laws barring abortion in several states, declaring that they could not ban the procedure before the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb.
That point, known as fetal viability, was around 28 weeks when Roe was decided. Because of improvements in medicine, most experts now estimate fetal viability to be about 23 or 24 weeks.
Striking Down Roe – What Does It Really Mean?
Legal abortion access could effectively end for those living in much of the American South and Midwest, especially those who are poor, according to a New York Times analysis from 2021.
One way to understand who will be most affected by overturning Roe is to consider who is getting abortions in the United States. The typical patient is already a mother, poor, unmarried, in her late 20s, and very early in her pregnancy.
Abortion bans are "racist and misogynistic and harmful to families throughout the country," said Michelle Colon, the co-founder of SHERo Mississippi who fights to defend Black women's reproductive rights. Those seeking abortions would also face additional challenges, including taking time off work, sorting out childcare, and securing transportation.
Look at the Texas law enacted in September 2021 that bans most abortions at about six weeks, before most women know they are pregnant. In the time since it went into effect, women from Texas have flooded into neighboring states to end pregnancies after the six-week cutoff. "You got Texas coming as far as Alabama to get an abortion, so that's the impact of just one state," said Laurie Roberts, who runs the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund and Yellowhammer Fund. "And it will be multiplied."
(Khaleda Rahman. “Roe v. Wade Being Overturned Will Harm Black Women the Most.” Newsweek. November 29, 2021.)
Overturning Roe would further cement the United States’ status as a global outlier on abortion. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, just three countries – Poland, El Salvador and Nicaragua – have tightened abortion laws since 1994.
(Staff. “Why the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade.” The New York Times. May 3, 2022.)
Striking down Roe v. Wade is not an end in itself. The action would assuredly launch even more ambitious agendas. In the Dobbs litigation, Mississippi denied that doing away with Roe would cast doubt on other precedents, set between 1965 and 2015, on which Roe rested or which relied on Roe. This series of decisions held that states cannot ban contraceptives, criminalize gay sex, or refuse to recognize same-sex marriage.
The state told the Court that those cases are not like Dobbs, because “none of them involve the purposeful termination of a human life.” But all of them involve the question of whether states should be able to make laws that affect some of the most intimate aspects of people’s lives.
In recent weeks, in anticipation of the Dobbs decision, various Republican senators have questioned Griswold v. Connecticut, which struck down a state ban on contraceptives; Obergefell v. Hodges, which required states to recognize same-sex marriage; and even Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated a state anti-miscegenation law. Overturning Roe would almost certainly fuel the broader fight to get fundamental moral issues out of the realm of federal constitutional rights and under the control of the states.
Although the legal arguments against Roe have focussed on returning the issue to the states, for five decades the core moral belief against the ruling has been that abortion is the termination of a human life. In April 2022, a twenty-six-year-old Texas woman was arrested on murder charges, for “intentionally and knowingly causing the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.” The prosecutor dismissed the case, saying that the Texas law did not apply to it. But the incident suggested a possible post-Dobbs future, in which states pursue criminal charges against people who have abortions as well as against those who provide them.
(Jeannie Suk Gersen. “If Roe v. Wade Is Overturned, What’s Next?” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/25/if-roe-v-wade-is-overturned-whats-next. The New Yorker. April 17, 2022.)
If the Supreme Court allows the states to ban abortion before viability, this will have a significant impact on the small number of pregnant people who seek abortions in the second trimester.
To get comprehensive information, Guttmacher Institute researchers surveyed 9,493 abortion patients at 95 hospitals and clinics across the country in 2008, weighting the data to create a nationally representative sample of abortion patients.
Of all women surveyed, 10.3 percent had abortions after the first trimester. Younger women, blacks and women with a high number of recent life disruptions are more likely than their counterparts to get second-trimester abortions.
Generally, these people have either received a devastating medical diagnosis or they have complex personal circumstances, including domestic violence, mental illness, and/or drug addiction. These patients, as well as the doctors that provide this care, are highly stigmatized.
Physical abuse or rape by a partner increased the likelihood of later abortion, with 13.7 percent of abortion patients who'd experienced second-trimester procedures (compared with 10 percent of women who hadn't). Other disruptive life events — loss of a job or a partner, for example – were likewise linked to later abortions. Of abortion patients who'd experienced three disruptive events in the last year, 14.8 percent got later-term abortions.
(Rachel K. Jones and Lawrence B. Finer. “Second-Trimester Abortions Concentrated Among Certain Groups of Women.” Guttmacher Institute. From "Who Has Second-Trimester Abortions in the United States?" December 16, 2011.)
Long-Term Effects Of Overturning Roe v. Wade
If Roe v Wade is overturned and abortion rights are returned to the states, access to abortion will effectively be a geographical lottery.
Abortion is a routine, common type of reproductive health care. Approximately one in four American women will have an abortion before they are 45.
(Rachel K. Jones and Jenna Jerman. “Population Group Abortion Rates and Lifetime Incidence of Abortion: United States, 2008–2014.” American Journal of Public Health 107. 2017.)
Polling in 2021 – Gallup, Quinnipiac – indicated that 80% of Americans support abortion in all or most cases, and at least 60% support Roe v. Wade.
(Alison Durkee. “How Americans Really Feel About Abortion: The Sometimes Surprising Poll Results As Supreme Court Weighs Overturning Roe V. Wade.” Forbes Staff. November 30, 2021.)
An Associated Press/NORC poll in June 2021 found 87% support abortion when the woman’s life is in danger, 84% support exceptions in the case of rape or incest, and 74% support abortion if the child would be born with a life-threatening illness.
(David Crary and Hannah Fingerhut. “Public Holds Nuanced Views about Access to Legal Abortion.” AP- NORC. June 24, 2021.)
Pew found Americans with religious affiliations are far more likely to oppose abortion than the nonreligious (82% of whom believe abortion should be legal), but with the exception of white evangelical Protestants (77% of whom believe abortion should be illegal), a higher share of every religious group polled – white non-evangelicals, Black Protestants and Catholics – favor abortion rights.
(Alison Durkee. “How Americans Really Feel About Abortion: The Sometimes Surprising Poll Results As Supreme Court Weighs Overturning Roe V. Wade.” Forbes Staff. November 30, 2021.)
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion will still be safely and legally accessible for those who can afford it. The devastating consequences of such a decision will fall primarily on the shoulders of those least able to bear it.
(Prudence Flowers. “Will Roe v Wade be overturned, and what would this mean? The US abortion debate explained.” The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/will-roe-v-wade-be-overturned-and-what-would-this-mean-the-us-abortion-debate-explained-173156. December 06, 2021.)
A range of research that found abortion legalization has significantly contributed to women's progression by reducing rates of teen motherhood and maternal mortality. It's also increased rates of educational attainment, workforce participation, and salary earnings. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, women — and the economies to which they contribute — will be set back, the research said.
Did you ever consider the financial impact of striking down Rowe v. Wade? Abortion restrictions also place an economic burden on states, research from the Center for the Economics of Reproductive Health at the Institute for Women's Policy Research found.
The nonprofit wrote that, "state-level abortion restrictions cost state economies $105 billion dollars per year – by reducing labor force participation and earnings levels and increasing turnover and time off from work among women ages 15 to 44 years."
Furthermore, an extra 505,000 women aged 15 to 44 who would earn about $3 billion each year would be able to participate in the workforce, IWPR found.
(Oma Seddiq and Madison Hoff. “How the Supreme Court throwing out abortion rights could undo much of women's economic progress since the 1970s: 'This is going to create just a perfect storm of concentrated human misery.'” Business Insider. May 03, 2022.)
Women will always attempt to obtain abortions, whether or not the abortions are legal. Women die from both unintended pregnancies and attempted unsafe abortions all over the world, and lack of access to safe abortions (caused by outlawing abortion) puts them at risk.
Therefore, the bans on abortion can be seen as legislation that sponsors state-sanctioned murder of women, especially those of less social privilege.
The Right Of the Woman
Most importantly, the personal beliefs of conservatives with no medical expertise have no place in legislation and rulings that impose on the rights women have to their bodies. If participation in liberal citizenship requires one to be unencumbered by natural obligations and beholden only to that which is voluntarily chosen, unexpected pregnancy finds no place in them.
Without control over their own reproductive lives, women could not be the equals of men – no matter what advances women have made in the job market or in higher education.
The right to abortion has been steadily eroded, so that now the debate is over who should be able to pre-empt a woman's choice to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, Laws now exist which allow parents, husbands or state governments to prevent pregnant women from having abortions.
Thirty-seven states do not provide abortion funding for poor women's abortions. And 32 of these won't even fund abortions for poor women who become pregnant as a result of rape or incest, or in cases of a severely deformed fetus.
Thirty-five states have laws requiring women under the age of 18 to notify or obtain the consent of a parent before they can have an abortion.
Think about this in relation to the probably Supreme Court ruling. In 1992, when the Supreme Court heard Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, which also focused on abortion rights. The Supreme Court upheld Roe v. Wade, saying the proposed Pennsylvania law, which required married women notify their husbands of their abortion plans, was unconstitutional. This law also required that women receive counseling on "alternatives" to abortion and then be required to wait 24 hours before they are allowed to have an abortion.
For my last word, I believe that if abortion issues and outcomes were really as simple as making a law to stop the killing of an innocent human being, then I would support the ban. It is not. I believe person-hood begins after a fetus becomes “viable” (able to survive outside the womb) or after birth, not at conception. Embryos and fetuses are not independent, self-determining beings, and abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, not the murder of a baby.
The Journal of Perinatal Education states that unintended pregnancies – which abortion allows women to stop – are associated with increased likelihood of risk factors causing death in childbirth, which also happens to vary by state.
Do anti-abortionists realize a ban will increase the number of unsafe abortions including incomplete abortion, hemorrhage, vaginal, cervical and uterine injury, and infections. Unavailability of safe abortion also poses risks to mental health, including severe anguish and risk of suicide.
One must also consider that abortion also gives pregnant women the option to choose not to bring fetuses with profound abnormalities to full term. I think we – on all sides of the issue – agree that a baby should not come into the world unwanted.
Those who seek to criminalize abortion will not stop it. What penalty do they wish to be enforced on offenders? In the 1980s when the U.S. Senate considered a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, abortion rights groups charged that such an amendment would require first-degree murder charges for women suspected of having abortions. Planned Parenthood warned that “even a miscarriage could be investigated as a criminal offense.”
No one is ready for the consequences of banning abortion. Understanding the issue requires deep consideration and considerable research, not simply emotional reaction. If and when it Roe v. Wade is overturned, the moral issue will continue to rage. The tragedy is that women will suffer because such a restrictive decision will set women's rights back … far back. If you believe you are saving lives and saving souls by being pro-life and anti-abortion, consider what (1) accurately defining “life” entails, and (2) what other deadly sins will be unleashed upon women and children in the ban.
I'll end with some cold statistics:
Nearly all deaths and morbidity from unsafe abortion occur in countries where abortion is severely restricted. In fact restrictive abortion policies are associated with higher rates of unsafe abortions. According to a 2014 UN report, “The average unsafe abortion rate was more than four times greater in countries with restrictive abortion policies in 2011 (26.7 unsafe abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years) than in countries with liberal abortion policies (6.1 unsafe abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years).” The World Health Organization has found that removing restrictions reduces maternal mortality from unsafe abortion.
What
To Do When A Politician Tries To Fall Into Your Vagina Feet
First
By Theresa
Davis
my body is not yours to
pump
lobby or legislate
there are no campaign funds
tucked
into my moccasins
or between the folds of my flesh
and the last
time I checked
there was no ATM in my vagina
no fuzzy slipper
morning sickness episiotomy
no sling back in time mentality
there
simply is no room in my womb
for your party to meet
my
fallopian tubes are not earbuds eager
to listen to your
rhetoric
because,
all you wanna do, is get in my
business
and you got no business being down there
if I had
wanted you down there
you'd have been invited
all shiny six
inch stiletto
but you were not invited
so now, you want to
barge in
all steel toe Timberland
so you can cross train tell
me how to run what
I have been running my whole life
and
I understand your God complex
you've been planting your flag
in
other folks intentions for so long
and, some habits die hard
but
I'm thinking
if your god wanted you in my pants
he would have
made you
me
I don't have time for your nonsense
the way
you flip flop agendas
stumbling on the untied laces
of your
misplaced metaphors
confusing women of today
with those you
tried to deny the right to vote
with all your platforms and
oversteps
I am sure in your Supreme wisdom
you understand
how this entire conversation
is inappropriate
and since you
cannot walk in my shoes
I'm gonna need you to take them off
you
are scuffing up my shine
but,
if
you want to discuss fair housing
equal pay for women
educational
benefits that ensure
each and every one of my children
goes to
college
if you want to talk about healthcare
or basic human
rights
I am down for that
but,
if all you want to
discuss is how you think
I should honor my body
you are wasting
your breath
you can not
DIC-TATE
who lives in my womb or who
is evicted
and how dare you suggest I get over it
and no
matter how many times you say it
there is no such thing as
legitimate rape
and for the record,
politician
women,
we
taught the world how
to make lemons
lemonade
so
until the day
your blood begs for its breath
as you lay broken
and battered
some foreigner's seed spilled in you sacred
spaces
while those who are supposed to protect
crate laws that
make you
victim
agenda
inconsequential
as they abort your
dreams while
celebrating your injustice
the day,
another
human being falls
from your body like grace
that's the
day you get to walk in my shoes
but until
then,
politician,
when you try to get all up in my
business
uninvited
me,
I'll be shutting that shyt (shit)
down
No comments:
Post a Comment