By: Alina Zheng

After almost 50 years since abortion was legalized across the nation, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade on June 24th, 2022, with a vote of 5-4, taking away a woman’s right to undergo an abortion, erupting outrage throughout America. The Supreme Court’s decision to give states the power to ban abortion is unconstitutional because it takes away a woman’s right to make choices about her body based on her experience.

The ruling of Roe vs. Wade will impact generations of women to come. As rights keep on getting taken away, young women won’t even end up having the same number of rights as their mothers once did. Millions of women are now affected by this decision, and it may put their lives in danger.

Anti-abortion laws were in place decades before Roe vs. Wade, with movements to push the United States government to ban abortion across the nation. Because abortions became illegal, it was dangerous to find places where women could safely end their pregnancy, especially for those who were low-income and people of color. By 1910, abortion was banned throughout the United States. However, in 1960, 11 states legalized it. To establish the right for women to access abortion throughout the nation, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 through the Roe vs. Wade case.

Each child that enters the world should be cared for and loved. However, because of the decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, hundreds of thousands of children may be born unwanted. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the unintended pregnancy rate is significantly higher in the United States than in many other countries. In 2019, the CDC reported that there were 629,898 abortions while in 2020, there were 930,160 abortions. Without the ability to abort a baby, there just might be hundreds of thousands of unwanted children. Those numbers may also reach millions in the future because the trend shows the number of abortions is increasing yearly.

The decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade takes away a woman’s choice to decide whether to carry a fetus. Accidental pregnancies cannot be avoided, so it isn’t the woman’s fault that they become pregnant. It should be their choice if they want to have an abortion instead of men who decide what women should do with their bodies. Pregnancy is difficult, and if they don’t want the baby, then they shouldn’t have to go through the effort and struggle.

After the Supreme Court ruling, women have been frantically turning towards abortion through medication, which are pills that can end a pregnancy when used during the first 10 weeks. Medication abortion is less expensive, less invasive, and it offers more privacy compared to surgical abortions. For example, Just the Pill, which is a nonprofit organization that allows patients to obtain abortion pills, is establishing mobile clinics to provide more women with access to the medication. Dr. Julie Amaon, Just the Pill’s medical director said, “By operating on state borders, we will reduce travel burdens for patients in states with bans or severe limits. And by moving beyond a traditional brick-and-mortar clinic, our mobile clinics can quickly adapt to the courts, state legislatures, and the markets, going wherever the need is.”

However, anti-abortion groups are trying to stop the increased interest in medication abortion by claiming that it is dangerous even though medical groups have proven it to be safe. For example, the F.D.A. allowed a research program to conduct telemedicine consultations and transport pills by mail. They discovered that 95 percent of the 1,157 abortions that happened between May 2016 and September 2020 were completed successfully.

The decision of whether to have an abortion or not should belong to women. It’s their choice to decide on their pregnancy journey because they are the ones who are carrying the baby. Women’s rights cannot keep getting taken away without a clear reason. We must protest and oppose the Supreme Court’s ruling. We must protect future generations and give them the liberties that they deserve. Women’s bodies, women’s rights.

Link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/us/abortion-decision reaction.html?searchResultPosition=2