If Roe goes, the vulnerable will be hurt most. And what else will go too?
Our country’s legacy of racism and systemic inequity is great — and it shines through when you compare who has been pushing to ban abortion and who is affected by those bans. When the draft Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion leaked, my blood ran cold. The leaked opinion sets a grim expectation of the end of federally protected abortion rights.
As the new president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania, I am especially attuned to the sheer magnitude of the consequences that people will have to face if abortion rights are clawed back by the Court. It is harrowing what people will need to do to obtain abortion care, and the lack of solutions is frustrating and gutwrenching.
In states where abortion is banned and no longer accessible, women and people who can become pregnant will be forced to travel hundreds, even thousands of miles for the care they should be able to receive in their communities. Some will not make it because of the cost, because of the difficulties they face in caring for their families, or the challenges of obtaining care in a city that is unfamiliar. People will be hurt, their care delayed even as their health is threatened. Some may even die. For all, their lives and the lives of their families will be irrevocably altered.
This is bleak and not an exaggeration. Medicine has advanced, and abortion, even when self-managed, is overwhelmingly safe. But those who are unable to access abortion will shoulder the serious health risk that comes with pregnancy — and that risk can be deadly, especially for Black women, who face racism in medical care and society writ large that raises their likelihood of serious pregnancy complications. People denied access to abortion are more likely to live in poverty — a harm for the children they already have, because our weakened social infrastructure
will not sustain them.
At Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania, we have a specific fund set up in honor of a mother who died because she could not safely access abortion. There are others like it around the country, charitable funds that were put in place so that no other person would die in the same way, and so people can make the decision that will sustain their lives, their bodies, and their futures.
Abortion access is an intersectional issue and the legal right to abortion has never been enough to guarantee access. Abortion bans and restrictions disproportionately affects those who already face barriers to care: people of color, immigrants, women, the LGBTQ+ community, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, and people wholive in rural communities.
Despite this having the most to gain or lose marginalized communities are sorely underrepresented in spaces where rights and access are determined. This is the continued legacy of racism and discrimination in our country. Where decisions about people’s bodies and lives are made by those who have little consequencefor those decisions.
The decision from SCOTUS has yet to be handed down, Roe and Casy are still the standards for federal constitutional abortion rights, but we are already seeing what will happen once those rights are stripped away. On Wednesday, the 25th, Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma signed into law a total abortion ban that is enforced by private citizens.
He’s not alone. Across the country, state politicians are working for a future without the protections of Roe v. Wade, introducing more than 500 anti-abortion restrictions in 41 states in 2022 alone. The cruelty of these laws and the crisis they are creating cannot be overstated. At a time when communities are facing senseless tragedies and immeasurable grief, politicians have opted to use their position and power to instill more fear.
Abortion will still be legal in
Pennsylvania after the decision is released, but the future of our state’s right to abortion is not guaranteed. Currently, anti-abortion legislators are attempting an extreme bill that proposes to permanently amend the Pennsylvania state constitution to take away any state protection for abortion access. If passed and then later approved on the ballot, Pennsylvania could be looking at a similar narrative of aggressive anti-abortion policy that can circumnavigate a Governor’s veto and quickly pass into law.
Some of the arguments used in the draft opinion state that the right to privacy does not extend to governing one’s own body in relation to pregnancy. As someone who is the product of interracial marriage, I can’t help but wonder: What could be next? Abortion, gay rights, contraceptives, interracial marriage, and other basic human rights have been legally established by the right to privacy.
If one goes, could the others follow? Where do these lawmakers fall on the right to privacy? What about states? Privacy, the right to make decisions about governing your life and body without the government’s interference, is not compromisable. This Supreme Court thinks otherwise and is forcing us to do so.