[The march for reproductive rights in downtown Denver. Photo courtesy of Alexis Spittal]
On Monday, May 2, 2022, the first draft of the Supreme Court’s majority motion written by Justice Samuel Alito to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the general public. The historic decision is slated to be deliberated and finalized in the coming two months.
Roe v. Wade was a landmark lawsuit that lead to a Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that solidified a woman’s constitutional right to abortion, especially in the first trimester when a fetus lacks viability and deduced that governments could not impose a regulation that favors a fetus’s life over that of the mother.
The case pursued was between Jane Roe (a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey) who was a 22-year-old unemployed Texan who was pregnant for the third time. Her opposition was Henry Wade, the Dallas District Attorney, who enforced the state law that abortions were only permissible to save a woman’s life. Though the court ultimately sided with Roe, she had already given birth and placed the child up for adoption.
Though this is the first change to be proposed on a national scale, this is not the first time abortion rights have been challenged in recent years. With a 5 to 4, conservative anti-abortion majority in the Supreme Court, it is believed that the turnaround with has been a long time coming.
In 2020 Louisiana proposed an abortion law that required abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of their clinics before they could offer the service which would have shut down all but one of the state’s abortion clinics. This was identical to a similar bill proposed in Texas in 2016.
Since the establishment of Roe v. Wade states have enacted 1,313 abortion restrictions. Between January and June 7, 2020, 561 abortion restrictions and 165 trigger bans in preparation of the overturning.
Texas’s, “heartbeat ban” was the most strict of those enacted in recent years. This ban prohibits abortion as soon as fetal heart activity can be detected and allows anyone to sue the abortion provider or other individuals who assisted the woman in receiving the abortion financially or through transportation.
Most women don’t find out they are pregnant until two weeks after their first missed period, which coincides with the time the heartbeat begins. Pregnancy is only detected three to four weeks from the last day of the most recent period and tests are only designed to detect human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) which is produced 6 days after fertilization.
With this potential revision of the court’s stance on a woman’s bodily autonomy, many are concerned that the precedent could lead to changing circumstances in other facets of life such as the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, and impose further racial divides. For example, the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia established a right to interracial marriage could be at risk as well.
“The overturning of Roe v. Wade means that every person who has been discriminated against and then protected by a ruling now has a new cause to worry. Women, in general, are going to continue to lose power because conservatives and liberals are being pitted against each other to make choices for every woman even when it doesn’t concern us specifically,” said Claire Broemmer, a freshman criminology student at DU.
The stigma around abortion comes largely from those that oppose it. Historically, conservatives post outside of Planned Parenthood with signs preaching “murder” and “the right to live”. The Planned Parenthood in Arvada, CO sends a disclaimer to those seeking an appointment that they often get protesters out front who have a tendency to yell and throw trash.
“ A lot of people in my family were raised Mormon or are Mormon so most of them are anti-abortion, but a lot of times when I talk to them I feel like the difference in beliefs isn’t that stark if you take the time to understand. A lot of religious people have anti-abortion views I think because they think that people that advocate for abortions are having sex willy-nilly and not being responsible when that’s not really the case. Most of the time when I talk about abortion, I’m not even thinking about late-term abortions where the fetus would be viable at that point whereas when my dad is thinking about abortion he’s thinking of late-term,” said Annalyn Jensen, a student at Utah State University and a member of the Mormon Church.
Such contrast in thinking is highly evident in instances such as when Republican Rep. Mike Johnson if Louisiana demanded a gynecologist give her stance on abortions “halfway out of the birth canal”. To which she responded that such occurrences are unfathomable.
The loss of the fight for abortion rights can inevitably influence the contraceptive market. With condoms running on average at a dollar each and birth control at $30-50, there are growing concerns about accessibility to such resources.
“I believe that the rulings in states like Texas are providing a map for the Supreme Court and other states to restrict access to basic medical care for women and trans folks. I think we will begin to see increased debates about sex education in public schools like we have been witnessing with “critical race theory.” As these white Christian nationalist trends amplify, access to accurate and vital information will become increasingly restricted from young folks,” said Taylor Wesley, Social Justice Professor at DU.
Wesley goes on to explain that it is highly likely that this ruling was leaked as a means to dampen opposition and outrage before its official rendering with the ability to garner votes and mitigate.
“Unfortunately, I do not believe that those in power feel like they need to listen to or follow the people at this point. For the people, by the people was always rather meaningless in terms of representation and exclusion, however, it has become increasingly devoid of meaning (especially re: material change). The wealthy/political elite (including political institutions) are not held accountable and have not been for a long time — to deleterious effect,” said Wesley.
Though action may not create a significant impact in the minds of the Supreme Court themselves, that has not stopped many women, uterus wielding, and allied people from taking to the streets to protest.
“Overturning Roe will just cement the fact in American politics that we don’t live in a democracy and can’t trust our government as it exists to act on behalf of people and their desires and rights. The ruling would give power to the voices of an extremist minority that cares about “traditional” relations between genders, said Aidan Phillips, a freshman international studies major at DU.
Despite the constant backlash, restrictions, and opposing state rulings, Roe v. Wade has stood the test of time among other monumental court cases that dictate the sociopolitical state of the nation. In recent months, it remains to be seen just how drastically that sociopolitical climate will change.
MFJS Reporter Spring 2022 