It’s the end of an era. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 decision, Roe v. wadewhich protected, with certain limits, the right of women to abortion.
This 6 to 3 judgment, made public on Friday, does not make abortion illegal. But he removes the barrier erected by Roe v. wade and from now on, the 50 American states will be able to do as they see fit and restrict, or even completely ban abortions within their borders.
It is expected that termination of pregnancy will now be illegal in half of the states, including several in the Midwest and South of the country.
The US Constitution does not confer the right to abortion, writes the majority of the Court. “The power to regulate abortions has therefore returned to the people and their elected representatives. »
The Court further finds that Roe v. Wade’s 1973 was “completely wrong” from the start: The 1973 court short-circuited the democratic process the six-judge majority believe.
This long-awaited decision by the American people thus signals the death warrant of many clinics where abortions were still performed in conservative states. Some 200 of them are at risk of closing their doors quickly, about a quarter of those in the United States, according to a recent report by the research group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health.
Women living in these states who wish to have a pregnancy terminated will have no choice but to cross borders and travel thousands of miles from their homes to find a clinic in a state where the procedure will still be permitted.
Which means that women’s right to bodily autonomy will vary — even more dramatically than it does now — from state to state.
Judgment delivered on Friday by the Court currently dominated by Republican judges largely confirms the version that had leaked into the American media Politico at the beginning of May. Given the conclusions of this draft, pro-abortion groups had been on high alert for two months.
Roe v. wade had withstood many legal attacks for almost 50 years. According to the elections and the appointments of Republican judges, many had attacked the flagship decision of the highest American court.
Last on the list was a challenge to a restrictive law passed in 2018 by the state of Mississippi, which prohibits abortions beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of medical emergency or fetal abnormality. The only abortion clinic still open in that state, the Jackson Women’s Health Organizationcarried the legal battle at arm’s length, seeking to have the legislation invalidated.
In the Supreme Court, Mississippi asked that the validity of its law be upheld, and many other states joined the cause and took the opportunity to ask it to overturn Roe v. wade.
It is now done.
In some states, nothing will change: abortion will probably remain accessible as before. But in many, it may be banned, with rare exceptions. And in still others, it could be a crime at all times, both for the woman who wants to obtain it (even if the pregnancy results from rape or incest) and for those who come to her. assistance. These women therefore risk having a criminal history for having obtained a termination of pregnancy while their neighbors in the next state will not have to face such legal consequences.
Texas and Oklahoma, for example, recently banned all abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy. These laws remained fragile and subject to challenge under the Roe v. wade. From now on, they have no more obstacles.
In Canada, abortion was a crime until 1988, when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the section of the Criminal Code that prohibited it.