On June 24, the ax of the Supreme Court of the United States fell on the judgment Roe v. Wade, which protected throughout the country the right to abortion for American women. The nearly 50-year-old judgment has been shelved, sparking fear among some of setbacks for women, but also for other rights and freedoms under Republican rule. Six months later, have those fears come true?
In 1973, Roe v. wade had established that pregnant women could obtain an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, but left it up to states to establish the possibility of introducing restrictions in the second trimester and banning them almost entirely in the third. By overturning that ruling, the Supreme Court, now dominated by conservative justices, gave the states back the power to do as they see fit, regardless of the quarter.
Result ? In this post-Roewithout the national protective yoke of the judgment, access to abortion is even more unequal from state to state.
It was anticipated that 26 states would completely ban it, or half of the United States.
Six months later, we are talking about 14 states where it is completely banned and 8 others which have passed a law to this end, except that the courts have blocked their entry into force, reports the Guttmacher Institute, an American research organization which closely monitors policies on reproductive health.
If it becomes prohibited there too, abortion will be inaccessible in a total of 22 states. Some of these laws, including Texas, have no exceptions for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a credible organization that does not hide its support for the right to abortion, dozens of clinics have closed their doors since the end of June, including the “pink house” in Jackson, Mississippi, the last that offered more abortions in this state. On her website, she directs patients to a clinic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, more than 1,000 miles away.
Legal one day, illegal the next
In some places, such as Kentucky and Louisiana, total abortion bans went into effect as soon as Roe v. wade was reversed: trigger laws were already in place, ready to go into effect. In other States, restrictive measures that have been invalidated by Roe in 1973 came back to life on June 24 — or soon after.
Sometimes the legal-illegal ballet was complex: a law was passed to ban abortion, then a court suspended it, followed by an appeal whose result revived the initial ban. In this incessant back and forth, it could be difficult to navigate. Fearing criminal charges, doctors have stopped offering pregnancy terminations until the rules are clarified.
However, in some states, such as Illinois and California, nothing has changed: abortion was legal before June 24, and still is.
Some state legislators have created protections for those who offer abortions to women coming from outside to get one — and have even funded the construction of clinics near the borders of states that prohibit them.
Unusual attacks
As expected, the battlefield has also shifted from concrete abortion clinics to the prescription of the abortion pill, which can be mailed out. The latter is therefore increasingly the target of laws and legal attacks aimed at outlawing it.
In Kansas, for example, a law was passed to prohibit its prescription by telemedicine, which makes its access more difficult for women – such a ban exists in 18 states, recalls the Guttmacher Institute.
An anti-abortion group decided in November to settle the issue once and for all: rather than banning the abortion pill in all 50 states, it attacked its source, asking the Federal Drug Administration (FDA ) to revoke its authorization, granted more than 20 years ago.
Some attempts to restrict abortion are most unusual. For example, one group decided to fight in court using environmental wastewater laws. A petition has been sent to the FDA to force doctors prescribing the pill to dispose of fetal tissue: otherwise, women who take the pill at home will contaminate the water, he alleges.
Political visions
On the same day the judgment was handed down, US President Joe Biden said that ” Roe will be on the ballot.
He then used this issue to rally voters to his party, even promising to enshrine in law the principles of Roe v. wade if the Democrats manage to add blue seats to the Senate and keep control of the House of Representatives. Except that the latter escaped him in the mid-term elections last November.
On June 24, with respect to the Supreme Court, Americans were already saying they were worried about the effect that the annihilation of Roe may have on other rights. The conservative judge Clarence Thomas wrote it himself in the judgment rendered that day: the court should also reconsider decisions rendered on the right to contraception and on the subject of same-sex marriage.
Sensing the threat, the House of Representatives and the Senate passed legislation in July to codify same-sex marriage across the United States. The House has also legislated to solidify the right to contraception, but the Senate has not yet approved this bill.
In short, as 2023 dawns, pro-abortion and anti-abortion proponents believe their work remains unfinished and are continuing their efforts to achieve their goals. Despite major upheavals, nothing has been settled this year.