Legal turnaround on the right to choose Abortion has sparked social debate in US and around the world. Why they are going backwards is the question needs to be asked. The discourse over women having rights over their bodies took center stage again post the overturning of landmark judgement “Roe vs Wade”, 1973 that established constitutional right to an abortion.
Roe v. Wade Judgement:
In 1969, a woman referred to as Jane Roe filed a case challenging a law in Texas that disallowed abortions except in cases where it was required to save the woman’s life. She wanted to get an abortion and the lawsuit was filed against Henry Wade, the district attorney representing Dallas County where the woman resided. She argued that Texas laws were unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right to personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 that the constitutional right to privacy protects a woman’s right to an abortion.
What lies ahead after overturning of this judgement?
After the SC has overturned the judgement, the decision to ban the procedure will be left to the States. This will mean different laws on abortion across the States.
Leaders in conservative states like South Dakota, Arkansas, Georgia and Indiana planned special legislative sessions to ban abortions as soon as the Supreme Court overturned the binding judgment. They believe that life begin with conception whereas The liberals, mostly seen as Democratic Party supporters, maintain that this is about a woman’s right to choose as in California.
To make abortion almost inaccessible, there are 6 states in the US that have only 1 clinic providing abortions. Around 27 major US cities and much of rural America qualify as abortion “deserts”, where most people live more than 100 miles away from an abortion provider. Unnecessary licensing requirements which can make it difficult for abortion service providers to stay open.
Many politicians and anti-choice activists have worked hard since the joe judgment to get this ruling overturned.
Research Suggest:
- Access to safe, legal abortion saves lives.
- Lack of access to safe abortions suffer can have negative consequences for health and well-being of women.
- Data underlines that pregnancy carries a greater risk for women than having an abortion.
- Anti-abortion laws do not or reduce abortions, but they do make them dangerous. When abortions are restricted or criminalized, people are forced to seek unsafe ways to end pregnancies.
Are these laws discriminatory?
- People with low incomes – teenagers, people of colour, migrants and refugees – are hardest hit by abortion restrictions because it is more difficult for them to pay, travel or take time off work.
- African-American women are three to four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth
- US has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation, and states with more restrictive abortion laws already have higher rates of both infant and maternal mortality. That’s why these new laws can be a recipe for disaster for women’s health.
Coat Hanger-Abortion Symbol:
A ‘coat hanger abortion’ technically means an unsafe abortion.
It refers to the practice of using the object to induce an abortion, as with many other household objects or homemade herbal concoctions, in the unavailability of safe or legal abortion access. In this case, pregnant persons would insert the hanger’s wire into their cervix to perform the abortion.
The coat hanger serves as a symbol of the reproductive rights movement and a reminder of the gruesome pre-Roe era.
In pro-choice protests, activists have turned to the coat hanger as a warning symbol for what lies ahead for women in America.
India’s Abortion Policy:
India’s Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 allows abortion until 20 weeks of pregnancy. An amendment in 2021 raised the ceiling for abortions to 24 weeks for special categories of pregnant women such as rape or incest survivors, that too, with the approval of two registered doctors.
