October 24, 2024

Moving on from the past: Abortion should be a constitutional right

author_bio
Alia Saphier in New Jersey, United States

Article link copied.

slide image

June 24, 2022. Pro-abortion rights rally at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Picture by: Wikipedia

Abortion rights are a crucial issue to many young women, such as myself, in the United States today.

While many countries have decriminalised or legalised abortion (more than 60 countries as of 2023),the United States has made a move back in time by denying women who reside in America the right to an abortion, leaving many of them feeling lost within their own country.

The Supreme Court in June 2022 overruled Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years in a 6-to-3 ruling.

Learning in more depth about Roe v Wade’s reversal has made me question whether my country is as interested in progress as it’s often claimed. The emphasis on “traditional values,” which are in themselves ridiculous, is both shocking and unacceptable, and begs the question if we will let our democracy move on from 1787 (when the US Constitution was written).

How was Roe v Wade overturned in 2022?

Roe v Wade (1973) was the US Supreme Court decision that women have the right to an abortion within their first trimester, no matter the circumstances. Under the ruling, states could introduce restrictions on abortions in the second trimester and flat-out ban the procedure in the third trimester.

The Supreme Court decision in the case of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization (24 June 2022) overturned Roe v Wade.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an abortion clinic in Mississippi, challenged the constitutionality of the state’s 2018 Gestational Age Act (which prohibits abortions after 15 weeks with two exceptions: medical emergencies and severe fetal abnormalities).

The case eventually reached the Supreme Court after Thomas Dobbs, a Mississippi state health officer, challenged the decision made by a lower court.

The majority opinion of the court, written by Samuel Alito accompanied by Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, decided the right to an abortion is not constitutional when the Constitution is “properly understood.” Three justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer, disagreed and one, chief justice John Roberts, wrote a separate opinion.

The first aspect of this decision is the claim that because the right to an abortion is not explicitly stated in the Constitution that cementing it in national law is unconstitutional.

They also included the idea that the protection, or lack thereof, to an abortion as regulated by a state is not a sex-based classification, and so it would not be subject to sex-based equality scrutiny. These two ideas are the beginnings of the massive decision to overturn Roe v Wade.

It is fascinating to me, as a woman raised in the United States, that the justices of the majority opinion were able to manipulate the law in a way that would rid them of fault in terms of sex-based scrutiny when clearly this is a ruling that will primarily affect all people with a uterus.

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees all citizens of the United States with equal protection under the law; however, by writing that abortion is not a sex-based classification, the majority justices purposefully ignore the clear consequences this decision holds for one half of the population and not the other.

Consequences so far

With the dissolution of the Roe v Wade decision, each state has established their own limits, with the Republican-run states essentially banning abortion and the Democratic-run states cementing their lack of restrictions.

The main consequence, as predicted by the former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, is that lower income women are struggling to receive proper care.

For women who have the necessary means, travelling to other states to receive care is an option, but those who lack such resources are stuck in an impossible situation. Poorer residents in restrictive states suffer as a result of abortion bans.

It is important that we in the US do not forget how limiting abortions may hurt some people more than others. Since only some states are making restrictions harsher, it can be easy to forget that these bans haunt the lives of families in other parts of the country.

Other consequences include larger average distances to clinics, negative impacts on maternal health, and doctors claim pregnancy-related mortality has worsened.

A recent report from ProPublica found that at least two women died as a result of a lack of access to abortion or timely medical care in Georgia due to the reversal of Roe v Wade.

Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, was one of them. After being delayed by a traffic jam, Thurman missed her abortion appointment, and was then prescribed a medical abortion instead. She suffered a rare complication after taking the pills, but doctors delayed operating due to the state’s newly passed LIFE act, which made performing the procedure a felony. By the time they did, it was too late.

The state government recently overturned this act and Amber’s family are planning to file a medical malpractice lawsuit, as Thurman’s death could have been prevented.

Trump and Vance kept silent on abortion at RNC, in effort to secure more women’s votes

Where do the presidential candidates stand on abortion?

Abortion is clearly a key issuefor voters, and a main point of contention between the two parties.

Kamala Harris, the current vice president and candidate for the Democratic Party, is very clearly in favour of a person’s right to an abortion. What’s more, Harris has made abortiona priority in her campaign, changing the nature of the election and bringing the issue back into the spotlight. It makes sense that abortion would be on Harris’s mind as she tries to appeal to female voters across the country.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, is not so easy to read. During his term, Trump nominated three out of the five justiceswho overturned Roe v Wade. During the first presidential debatebetween Trump and Biden in June, Trump said:“Everybody, without exception, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives” wanted the reversal of Roe v Wade.

However, since Harris’s nomination as the Democratic nominee, both Trump and his vice president choice J.D. Vance are unified, saying they are against a national abortion ban.To many Democrats, this seems like a false flag to appease middle-ground voters in what is solely an election strategy and not an actual promise.

However, this strategy may be working – Politico reportsthat many people who support the right to an abortion are also planning to vote for Trump.

When the Constitution was created, it denied any person who was not a white male landowner the right to vote. This included any non-property-owning white males, all African Americans (both free and enslaved), and all women. But, since then, Americans in all of these groups have worked to gain franchisement. So, why would we allow our progress to stop there and not include equal rights to necessary healthcare?

I, alongside many young people throughout the US today, feel that our voices aren’t being heard.

Whether on abortion or the many other issues that we care about, the upcoming generation continues to push for their voices to be considered. If politicians want to linger in the past, I can’t promise that the youth will sit and wait for them to realise their mistake.

The US government needs to begin to represent us, and I can only hope that, by the time they do, it will not be too late to save the lives of many and the trust in our country.

Written by:

author_bio

Alia Saphier

Publisher

New Jersey, United States

Alia Lael Brühl Saphier was born in 2006 and currently studies in Englewood, New Jersey.  She joined Harbingers’ Magazine in 2023 as a contributor and social media manager. In 2024, she became the publisher.

Alia attends the Manhattan School of Music precollege for classical voice and is an editor for her school’s foreign language magazine. In her free time, she plays the violin, guitar, and ukulele. Her wider interests also include songwriting, reading, traveling, acting, and creative writing.

Alia speaks English, German, and Spanish.

Edited by:

author_bio

Maria Mitko

Human Rights Section Editor

Warsaw, Poland

women's desk

🌍 Join the World's Youngest Newsroom—Create a Free Account

Sign up to save your favourite articles, get personalised recommendations, and stay informed about stories that Gen Z worldwide actually care about. Plus, subscribe to our newsletter for the latest stories delivered straight to your inbox. 📲

Login/Register