Many controversies arose with the midterm elections, such as Donald Trump telling the American people to only vote Republican, purposely trying to create division within the country or the many ads that were released against incumbent Joe Manchin releasing information about his support for Mylan, a pharmaceutical company that purposely raised their prices on medicines like Epipens.
The biggest controversy in West Virginia’s midterm election was, however, Amendment 1.
In short, this amendment states that nothing in the West Virginia Constitution protects the right to an abortion. So, what does that really mean?
Well it doesn’t mean that abortion are totally illegal… Yet. But it does mean that taxes will not go towards funding the places that offer abortions nor will people that have Obamacare be allowed to use their free healthcare to pay for an abortion, which then forces people who cannot afford an abortion to carry out their pregnancy to term.
The results for Amendment 1 were extremely close, with 51.73% saying yes to the amendment and 48.27% saying no to the amendment– splitting the state almost in half.
This amendment doesn’t only keep people who can’t afford abortions from having one though.
It paves the perfect road to make abortion completely illegal. West Virginia already has a law that criminalizes abortions but cannot be put into effect due to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Roe vs. Wade case that prohibits states from banning abortions before a fetus can live outside of the mother’s womb.
However, if the Supreme court decides to overrule Roe vs. Wade then all the laws are already in place in West Virginia to immediately make abortions illegal. Now that the Supreme court is right leaning due to Brett Kavanaugh being voted into the Supreme Court it will be much easier for the ruling on Roe vs. Wade to be overruled.