In the Aftermath: Roe V. Wade Overturned
By Shreya Suhani
On the 24th of June, 2022, the constitutional amendment that provided the right to abortion, Roe V. Wade – was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States, undoing nearly fifty years of American history. This distressed millions of US and non-US citizens alike by making them afraid of what the future might indicate for women as well as other vulnerable groups and minorities within the nation.
Roe V. Wade, broadly termed as Roe, is the landmark case that granted the constitutional right to abortion in the US. This case was brought forward by a Texan woman–Norma McCorvy, going by the alias Jane Roe, who filed it against the then district attorney of Dallas County, Henry Wade. She was a pregnant unmarried woman and at the time, the state of Texas did not permit abortion for any situation apart from saving the mother’s life, and unlike some affluent and well-off women, Roe did not have the resources to travel out of state for an abortion or acess alternate means of abortion. At the time, there were increasing movements and petitions regarding women’s healthcare and especially the right to abortion. Roe’s lawyers argued that the laws pertaining to abortion were vague, unconstitutional, and infringed upon her personal privacy. The Supreme Court at the time, took this into consideration and decided that the right to? abortion fell under the seminal “right to privacy” act in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This act protects against state actions that hinder personal privacy—in essence, it is to prevent the state from exercising excessive control over its citizens. Yet, the justices remained conflicted between the right to bodily autonomy and “protecting the potentiality of human life.” Ultimately, it was decided that despite the latter issue, a state law that denies a woman the choice of abortion would be violating the fundamental crux of the said Clause, and thus—abortion was made a constitutional precedent.
This was revolutionary since it, for the first time, allowed safe and proper medical care for abortive processes – by making it constitutionally legal. Prior to Roe V. Wade, conditions were so critical that 17% of all deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth were due to unsafe abortion practices. After Roe, this fell to a mere 0.3%. Roe V. Wade was also paramount in bringing more attention and autonomy to women’s issues and healthcare by influencing decades of subsequent constitutional statutes and amendments.?
Despite the obvious benefits of legalising abortion on women’s heath and safety, a constant war has been waged on this constitutional precedent since its inception. This comes mostly from religious and right-wing organisations who believe it sacrilegious to prevent life from being brought into the world. Moreover, with increasing polarisation in the US and stricter restrictions in place, it all finally culminated in the overturning of Roe V Wade on the 24th of June.
A leak of the draft opinion on this case reveals Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s frankly disquieting reasons to overturn the decision, who said that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.” The Court, in defence of this decision, claimed that a foetus was now determinately recognised as a “person” or citizen under the new law, and thus, in intent of protecting pre-natal life and the rights to its future, they were right in overturning Roe.
However, this change hasn’t made abortion illegal but gives much greater power to individual states on the restrictions that they can place on the bodies of women and people who give birth. Polls suggest that nearly twenty-six states can now almost fully make abortion illegal, if not incredibly inaccessible, in the aftermath of this decision. This does not bode well, specially for minority groups and people who need medical attention, who need abortions, as it places them almost fully at the mercy of the state—to do as they deem fit. It sets behind years of constitutional change that was brought about by sheer, relentless effort and fighting on the part of feminist activists and will cause grave harm by forcing people to rely on unsafe methods of abortion. Additionally, many babies which could have been aborted would have to be put up in foster care, putting immense pressure on the system, and kids growing up in this system almost never have normal loving childhoods. The taking away of the rights of people, of mothers to dictate whether or not to give birth, is not only a gross violation of privacy and reproductive rights but also fueling a problem far bigger—that of millions of misplaced, traumatised children.
It is important to learn and help contribute to the fight against this policing of women’s healthcare and bodies, and denial of what should be basic human rights for them—simply under the guise of protecting “potential life”. Since the United States is a hugely influential country, both in terms of soft and hard power—it is easy to envision that other, less liberal parts of the world may follow in its footsteps. Women’s rights and suffrage has been a constant fight since the mid-19th century and it has taken centuries to get rights that make the world a little better for women to occupy. It is distressing to think about what is to follow if one of the most apparently liberal countries of the world exercises such staunch restraint on basic female healthcare.
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References
Blackmun, Harry A. “Roe v. Wade.” Oyez, https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18. Accessed 23 July 2022.
“How Roe v. Wade's reversal could affect the LGBT community.” The Hill, 8 May 2022, https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3479755-how-roe-v-wades-reversal-could-effect-the-lgbt-community/. Accessed 23 July 2022.
Puckett, Lauren, and Erica Gonzales. “Roe v. Wade, Explained: A Summary of the Landmark Abortion Case.” Elle, 24 June 2022, https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a39894580/roe-v-wade-summary/. Accessed 23 July 2022.
“Roe v. Wade: The tumultuous history that led to the landmark ruling.” National Geographic, 23 June 2022, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/roe-v-wade-the-tumultuous-history-that-led-to-the-landmark-ruling. Accessed 23 July 2022.
Vishwanath, Apurva. “What is Roe v. Wade?” The Indian Express, 24 June 2022, https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-roe-v-wade-us-supreme-court-overturned-significant-abortion-constitutional-right-7989490/. Accessed 23 July 2022.
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