Utah’s Responsibility to Women in Light of Overturning Roe v. Wade
We are heartbroken with the decision to overturn Roe V. Wade. As a community serving Utah’s healthcare economy we stand with Utahn women and believe firmly in their right to choose and their right to raise children safely and successfully.
In response to the U.S. Senate’s decisions, Utah’s trigger abortion ban is set to go into effect, but it requires the legislative general counsel to certify the Supreme Court’s decision to the Legislative Management Committee.
Anytime a state adopts laws that mandate its citizens to take on certain obligations, it creates its own additional financial and procedural obligations. With this new U.S. Senate decision, the state of Utah becomes responsible for proactively providing all required healthcare and education services, and support to ensure that all women — especially those with fewer resources and support — can safely and fairly complete pregnancy, delivery and raise their children until adulthood, successfully.
With the overturning of Roe v Wade, Utah must become responsible for providing the full range of services and support for the child’s early care and should prioritize investing in healthcare programs that achieve that end goal.
This decision will also draw attention to Utah’s growing responsibility to ensure consistent access to reproductive education, counseling, and birth control resources for men and women as a preventative measure against unwanted pregnancies and practical and constant adoption support.
By revoking women’s rights to choose an abortion, Utah’s healthcare responsibilities to women must be fulfilled as a duty to the citizens that government serves. There is no exception. To shirk this duty is to violate the basic ethics of fairness.
It is insufficient to defer to federal or municipal programs to do the work of satisfying the new duties that this decision creates. It is not the work of private companies or extended families to be forced to take on government responsibility when any human choice is revoked federally in healthcare at a government level. Now, this duty belongs to the state.
The Altitude Team
