U.S. abortion rights at risk
On the sidewalk in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building on Wednesday, an artist named Mital teared up when talking about how the concept of access to abortion became personal for her.
“I was sexually assaulted two months ago,” she said. “And I feel really lucky that I didn’t have to get an abortion, that I wasn’t pregnant. But thank God I had the choice.”
She’s 29, having lived all her life in a country where the court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade guaranteed access to abortion, and says she feels lucky to have also grown up with a mother who taught her about choices and birth control.
But it was her recent traumatic experience that drove home the personal stakes of this political issue. “It was a really scary moment in my life,” she said, “but it was not the end of the world, because I live in a place where I did have that choice, and I didn’t have to think about the worst-case scenario.”
That’s what brought her to the steps of the Supreme Court building on Wednesday, carrying handpainted signs depicting a uterus and reading “My body, my choice,” where she joined others rallying to express support for the right to abortion access. “Whether you choose not to get an abortion or choose to get one, it should be safe and accessible to you,” she said.
For the first time in her life — the first time in the lives of generations of Americans — it seems likely that the recognized right to abortion across the U.S. could very soon be taken away. The Supreme Court was hearing arguments Wednesday in the Mississippi case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which seeks to overturn the precedent of Roe that keeps governments from restricting abortion before the point of fetal viability (which is considered roughly 24 weeks into a pregnancy). The Mississippi law at issue in the Dobbs case, which was found unconstitutional by lower courts, would ban abortions after 15 weeks.
The fact that the conservativedominated court chose to hear the case has fuelled speculation that it is poised not only to allow the Mississippi law to stand but, in so doing, to overturn the decision in Roe v. Wade. That could allow other states to place their own restrictions on abortion — or even to ban it entirely.
Almost one in four women in the U.S. (23.7 per cent) will have had an abortion by age 45, a statistic the U.S. Solicitor General raised in her arguments to the court. But while 59 per cent of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, opposition to legal abortion has become the defining issue for the Republican party since the 1980s.
The hearing on Wednesday drew thousands of demonstrators representing both sides of the issue. Those like Mital carried signs reading “Protect abortion access” and “Hands off Roe.” Side by side with them, anti-abortion protesters displayed images of dismembered fetuses, alongside signs that read, variously, “God hates hands that shed innocent blood,” “Queer, atheist, pro-life” and “I am the post-Roe generation.”
Laura Lane, a university student from Jackson, Mississippi, said she grew up in a Christian community where abortion was always viewed as wrong. But it has only been in the past semester that members of her student anti-abortion group have become hopeful that the ban they’ve hoped for might become a reality. “It’s a big historic moment,” she said.
Lane said she viewed the issue differently from those who see access to abortion as a fundamental women’s right. “I think it just depends on like, whether or not you value life, and you see a child in the womb, and not just a clump of cells, because that’s definitely not the case. We are all there once, you know,” Lane said. “We’re essentially out here being a voice for the voiceless, those who can’t defend their lives yet.”
During roughly two hours of oral arguments, a majority of the court’s judges seemed inclined to uphold the Mississippi law. While it can be difficult to guess the outcome based on what the justices say during arguments, the tone and content of the questions from five of the conservatives suggested they were leaning toward overturning the Roe decision. Chief Justice John Roberts asked many questions specifically about overturning the viability threshold, possibly seeking a middle ground to allow the precedent protecting the right to abortion to be partially upheld, while also allowing Mississippi’s 15-week law and others like it to stand.
A lot of the judges’ attention focused on a fundamental principal of the court — that it should not overturn precedents unless something substantial about the situation has changed. Conservative judges cited famously overturned precedents from the past seeking a justification for doing the same, while the three liberal justices argued that it would be dangerous to overturn this one when the only thing that had changed was the ideological composition of the court.
“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked.
While arguments ended Wednesday afternoon, the court is not expected to rule on the case until next June or July.
On the sidewalk outside the court, a woman named Melissa from Takoma Park, Md. — who said she’d been grateful her sister had been able to have an abortion — was facing the prospect of the court’s decision with a sense of “dread,” although she said the number of prochoice demonstrators there was reason for hope.
Whatever the legal decision, there will “absolutely” be political work to do, she said.
“I hope it’s a wake-up moment for people. I know, it’s been a wake-up moment for me,” she said. “What could and would happen if Roe v. Wade is overturned?”
Americans may soon find out.