The US is back in 1972. Nearly half a century after the Supreme Court ruled that American women enjoy the right to abortion in all 50 states, the same Court has again stripped them of this fundamental right.
In an equally groundbreaking and controversial verdict, six of the nine senior judges on Friday overturned two previous rulings (Roe v. Wadefrom 1973, and Planned Parenthood v Casey, from 1992) that underpinned federal abortion law for decades. From now on, it is again up to states to determine how they want to regulate abortion.
The ruling, made in a case involving an abortion clinic in Mississippi, will immediately affect millions of women living in the approximately two dozen states that have now prepared themselves with conservative legislation. In these ‘red’ states, so-called trigger laws coming into effect: laws prohibiting termination of pregnancy in nearly all cases in the state concerned.
Read also this report from Missouri, a frontline state in the fight for abortion
In progressive, ‘blue’ states, the parliaments have access to free and legal abortion, sometimes well into the pregnancy, with extra legal protection. In the near future, these states will become refuges for women in need from red states.
According to Samuel Alito, the conservative judge who wrote the verdict, the Court should never have considered abortion in 1973 and 1992. After all, the high judges test against the constitution, which says nothing about abortion, according to Alito. It would therefore be better to leave this issue to elected representatives at the state level.
In many red states, Republican politicians in recent years have erected a variety of legal and practical obstacles that hinder access to safe and legal abortion care. Many women were forced to move to neighboring states with more liberal policies. Especially women from poorer backgrounds, who lacked the money or information to make such a journey, were forced to carry their pregnancy to term. By the Court’s ruling, the trigger laws and the de facto abortion bans now law.
This is a curtailment of women’s rights and their status as free and equal citizens
Progressive Judges in their minority point of view
Right to privacy
When the Court decided in 1973 with Roe v. Wade to grant abortion rights nationwide, it invoked the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This regulates the right to privacy, from which, the high courts ruled at the time, women could also derive the right to freedom of choice in the event of an (unwanted) pregnancy. Abortion thus became a fundamental right.
‘Roe’, however, never silenced the social discussion about abortion. Conservative politicians and activists, evangelical Christians and Catholics started so-called pro lifemovements, to protect the ‘unborn life’. This has repeatedly led to (sometimes fatal) attacks on abortion clinics and doctors. More effective was a patient campaign to help elect senators, who in turn pro lifeto appoint judges to the main courts of justice.
That campaign came to a head in late 2020, when President Donald Trump (2017-2021) was allowed to nominate a third judge to the Supreme Court. Following the appointment of Catholic Amy Comey Barrett, the Court now has a robust Conservative majority of six to three. With the abolition of federal abortion law – a year and a half after his departure from the White House – Trump is now giving his supporters another important political victory.
‘Women’s rights curtailed’
Ever since a draft of this statement leaked – highly unusual – in early May, progressive America has been preparing for the imminent end of ‘Roe’. Last weeks there were plenty pro choicedemonstrations in major cities. In addition, activists demonstrated on a small scale near the homes of the conservative members of the Court. Now that the verdict is a fact, a new round of protests will probably be started.
In opinion polls, approximately two-thirds of Americans indicate that they would like to retain women’s freedom of choice. President Biden’s Democrats hope that Republicans will pay an electoral price for this verdict, as a result of all their nominations of right-wing judges. The November Congressional elections should show whether voters do indeed consider abortion a serious topic.
The three progressive judges at the Court published a joint minority opinion on Friday, expressing their ‘greatness’ over the decision of their six right-wing colleagues. Whatever the exact impact of the new laws, one result is clear: the curtailment of women’s rights and their status as free and equal citizens.
Also read this article: Access to abortion becomes dividing line in US