What Does the Overturn of Roe v Wade Mean For Me?
Like many other people, I woke up Tuesday morning to hear from various Instagram stories that the Supreme Court decision was leaked and that Roe v. Wade was going to be overturned. What was long-rumored speculation was officially enacted. I immediately was curious as to how this would affect me.
What is Roe v. Wade?
A Supreme Court decision from 1973 established a constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Jane Roe (appellant) was a fictitious name for Norma McCorvey who was 22 at the time. Henry Wade (appellee) was the district attorney for Dallas Country, Texas. Roe at the time was “challenging a Texas law making abortion illegal except by a doctor’s orders to save a woman’s life” (Oyez). Roe said that this was unconstitutionally vague. She said that this law would diminish her rights to personal privacy which was protected by the first, fourth, fifth, ninth, and fourteenth amendments (Oyez). So the main question of this case is if the Constitution recognized a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion.
Roe V. Wade Decision 1973
The fourteenth amendment states the right to privacy and whether a woman chooses to have an abortion or not falls under that. The court decided that in the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy the state cannot regulate the decision. In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortions that are reasonably related to the health of the mother. And lastly, in the third trimester, the state has the ability to regulate abortions or prohibit them in their entirety.
Roe V. Wade Today
A leaked draft of the overturn of Roe v. Wade was confirmed but not finalized. However, this leaked draft caused a lot of uproar from the public. President Biden stated that “if this decision holds, it’s really quite a radical decision.” For decades, Republican figures have been arguing the point that life begins with conception. They say that Roe invented a right that was not in the Constitution. The decision on abortion rights will be made by individual states. However, it is estimated that approximately half of the states will take away the right for women to get an abortion. This would mean that, in order to get a safe abortion, women would have to travel. This is not always practical considering that some women that opt to get an abortion are young, with little money, and unmarried. The number of abortions would likely fall by around 14 percent (Miller and Sanger-Katz). Most Americans support some form of abortion rights. So this overturn of Roe v. Wade is not the majority opinion.
What This Could Mean For Other Enacted Laws
One of the reasons that Roe v. Wade is being overturned is that the right to privacy is not explicitly listed in the Constitution despite its interpretation from the fourteenth amendment. This challenges all existing laws that are in place because of the right to privacy. Some examples are the right to decide your child’s education, same-sex marriage, and interracial marriage. Additionally, access to birth control is protected under the same legal framework (Jacoby). Some birth control is also labeled as abortion-causing medications. The right to access contraception is under the case of Griswold v. Connecticut and this case could potentially be overturned under the same reasoning as Roe v. Wade (Schreiber). As Priscilla Smith, a lecturer on law and reproductive rights at Yale University, states, “If this draft becomes the real opinion, all of those issues – contraception, consensual sex and marriage rights – certainly are at risk.” This shows that even more is at stake.
How Will This Affect Women?
The overturn of Roe v. Wade will not only affect abortion rights. It goes beyond the argument of pro-life and pro-choice, it is a matter of women’s rights. This will put many groups more at risk. People living in economic poverty, young people, and people of color already face many barriers to abortion care (Klasing). According to Klasing, this overturn will not reduce abortions but will cause an increase in unsafe ones.
Although this has not been stated officially yet, it has sparked a lot of debate other than the rights of women’s health. How do you feel about the overturn of Roe v. Wade?
“Roe v. Wade.” Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18. Accessed 4 May. 2022.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/03/what-roe-v-wade-means-human-rights#