ROE VS WADE ABROGATION: FOR WHAT?

On Friday, the 24th of June, the Supreme Court of the United States of America reversed Roe v. Wade, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly half a century, no longer exists.

Writing for the court plurality, Justice Samuel Alito said that the 1973 Roe ruling and reiterated successive high court verdicts reaffirming Roe “must be overruled” because they were “egregiously wrong,” the arguments “exceptionally weak” and so “damaging” that they amounted to an “an abuse of judicial authority.”

The decision, most of which was leaked in early May, means that abortion rights will be rolled back in nearly half of the states immediately, with more restrictions likely to follow. For all practical purposes, abortion will not be available in large swaths of the country. The decision may well mean too that the court itself, as well as the abortion question, will become a focal point in the upcoming fall elections and the fall thereafter.

And this verdict is an enormous gust and a threat to womanhood and the in-betweens.

WHAT IS THE ROE VS WADE?

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the constitution of the United States generally protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion. The ruling abrogated many federal and state abortion laws and fueled an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. It also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.

THE EFFECTS OF OBLITERATING ABORTION RIGHTS.

People have abortions all the time, regardless of what the law says. Ending a pregnancy is a common decision that millions of people make. Every year, a quarter of pregnancies end in abortion. And regardless of whether abortion is legal or not, people still require and regularly access abortion services.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a US-based reproductive health non-profit, the abortion rate is 37 per 1,000 people in countries that prohibit abortion altogether or allow it only in instances to save a woman’s life, and 34 per 1,000 people in countries that broadly allow for abortion, a difference that is not statistically significant.

When undertaken by a trained health-care provider in sanitary conditions, abortions are one of the safest medical procedures available, safer even than child birth. But when governments restrict access to abortions, people are compelled to resort to clandestine, unsafe abortions, particularly those who cannot afford to travel or seek private care. Which brings us to the next point.

Preventing women and girls from accessing an abortion does not mean they stop needing one. That’s why attempts to ban or restrict abortions do nothing to reduce the number of abortions, it only forces people to seek out unsafe abortions.

Unsafe abortions are defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “a procedure for terminating an unintended pregnancy carried out either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not confirm to minimal medical standards, or both.”

It is not only cisgender women and girls (women and girls who were assigned female at birth) who may need access to abortion services, but also intersex people, transgender men and boys, and people with other gender identities who have the reproductive capacity to become pregnant.

One of the foremost barriers to abortion access for these individuals and groups is lack of access to healthcare. Additionally, for those who do have access to healthcare, they may face stigma and biased views in the provision of healthcare, as well as presumptions that they do not need access to contraception and abortion-related information and services.

Access to safe abortion services is a human right. Under international human rights law, everyone has a right to life, a right to health, and a right to be free from violence, discrimination, and torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Human rights law clearly spells out that decisions about your body are yours alone — this is what is known as bodily autonomy.

Forcing someone to carry on an unwanted pregnancy, or forcing them to seek out an unsafe abortion, is a violation of their human rights, including the rights to privacy and bodily autonomy.

In many circumstances, those who have no choice but to resort to unsafe abortions also risk prosecution and punishment, including imprisonment, and can face cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and discrimination in, and exclusion from, vital post-abortion health care.

Access to abortion is therefore fundamentally linked to protecting and upholding the human rights of women, girls, and others who can become pregnant, and thus to achieving social and gender justice.