Abortion in the United States is no longer a right, the country’s Supreme Court ruled on Friday (24). The sentence, which reverses a decision that had been taken by the same court 49 years ago, has major impacts on women’s lives and American politics.
The change does not ban abortion in the country, but it does make room for each of the 50 states to adopt local vetoes. The court upheld a law created in the state of Mississippi in 2018, which prohibits the termination of a pregnancy after the 15th week of pregnancy, even in cases of rape, as valid. Judges used this case as an opportunity to overturn another 1973 decision known as Roe v. Wade, who released the procedure in the country.
In the 1970s, judges had linked abortion with the right to privacy, considering that governments could not interfere with a woman’s intimate choice — whether or not to maintain a pregnancy. The right to privacy is guaranteed by two amendments to the US Constitution, the 9th and 14th.
In the current lawsuit, called Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, most judges took the opposite position and considered that linking the procedure with the right to privacy makes no sense.
Thus, states with conservative governments, such as Texas and Florida, must take away this right from their residents, while regions under progressive rule, such as California and New York, will keep it. Thus, the change should especially affect the poorest women in conservative states, as they are less able to travel to another state where the procedure is authorized.
Projections made by the American press indicate that at least 23 states should ban abortion almost completely after the Supreme Court’s decision. In recent years, several states governed by Republicans have taken steps to make access to the procedure more difficult, in an effort to gradually erode this right.
A federal law to legalize abortion nationwide could be drafted, but the chances of the current Congress passing such a proposal are slim. Republicans, who are against abortion, have the power to stop the measure in the Senate. And there is no consensus among Democrats to try to change the rules that allow the opposition to block approval of such proposals.
The end of the right to abortion had been expected since early May, when a draft decision on the subject was revealed by the website Politico. After that, there were a series of protests across the country, and the Supreme Court’s seat was protected by bars.
Women’s rights groups had already called for protests against the measure in several cities across the country, to be held on the day the decision was made public.
The historic change in position came after the court now had a majority of conservative judges, a legacy of Donald Trump, president from 2017 to 2021. He managed to appoint three justices, with the help of Republican senators. His allies blocked President Barack Obama from making an appointment in 2016, at the end of his term, and rushed to ensure that Trump appoints another judge in 2020, weeks before the election he lost.
Right now, the US is in the midst of the midterms election campaign, a November vote that will renew state governments and much of Congress. Many Democratic candidates are expected to use the issue to woo progressive voters, pledging to help liberalize abortion in vetoed states and protect other rights. And Republicans should reinforce their position against the procedure and point out that the party managed to deliver the veto it sought since the 1970s.
The decision of Roe v. Wade profoundly changed American politics and, indirectly, helped to make it more polarized. The fight against abortion has become a cause that unites conservatives and religious leaders in the country, who hoped to veto the practice for good. They have spent years doing both large protests across the country and small actions, like spending hours in front of abortion clinics trying to convince women to back out of the act.
One of the tactics to bring down Roe v Wade was to debate how long women could have abortions. The 1973 decision defined that the procedure was totally free in the first trimester of pregnancy (12 weeks), allowed with some restrictions in the second trimester and could only be vetoed in the third part of pregnancy.
In 1992, the court judged another case (Planned Parenthood v. Casey), in which it confirmed the right to abortion, with one change: it started to consider the concept of fetal viability: women can abort without restrictions until the moment the fetus able to survive outside the uterus, which tends to happen after 22 weeks.
In recent years, this period has been shortened by state laws. The Mississippi rule, now validated by the Supreme Court, set the 15-week limit. A Texas law passed in September 2021 bars the procedure from six weeks into the pregnancy, when many women have yet to discover they are pregnant. The Texan rule considers the fetus to be viable if the heart is beating. In May, Oklahoma went further and passed a ban on abortion from the moment of conception.
The current change empowers conservative politicians to try new steps, such as proposing laws that prevent women from going to another state for abortions or punishing those who help them get the procedure. Texas law makes room for even a driver who transports a woman on her way to a clinic to be punished, even if he doesn’t know her intention.
For progressives, there are fears that the Supreme Court will review other decisions, such as the 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage. In reaction to the conservative wave, large American companies, such as Apple and Citibank, created programs to help women travel to where they can have an abortion legally.
