On Roe Vs. Wade
Defined.
Roe v. Wade, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, ruled (7–2) that unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the Court held that a set of Texas statutes criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman’s constitutional right of privacy, which it found to be implicit in the liberty guarantee of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”). Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.
(taken from: https://www.britannica.com/event/Roe-v-Wade)
Jun. 24, 2022, 10:36 AM ET - The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. "We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court's majority opinion✎ EditSign in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. "The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Quotes.
“No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body.”― Margaret Sanger
“How come when it’s us, it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken, it’s an omelette?”― George Carlin
“I cannot understand anti-abortion arguments that centre on the sanctity of life. As a species we've fairly comprehensively demonstrated that we don't believe in the sanctity of life. The shrugging acceptance of war, famine, epidemic, pain and life-long poverty shows us that, whatever we tell ourselves, we've made only the most feeble of efforts to really treat human life as sacred.”― Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman
“We don't like to kill our unborn; we need them to grow up and fight our wars.”― Marilyn Manson
“The Vatican won't prosecute pedophile priests but I decide I'm not ready for motherhood and it's condemnation for me? These are the same people that won't support national condom distribution that PREVENTS teenage pregnancy.”― Sonya Renee Taylor
“Here is the trap you are in.... And it's not my trap—I haven't trapped you. Because abortions are illegal, women who need and want them have no choice in the matter, and you—because you know how to perform them—have no choice, either. What has been violated here is your freedom of choice, and every woman's freedom of choice, too. If abortion was legal, a woman would have a choice—and so would you. You could feel free not to do it because someone else would. But the way it is, you're trapped. Women are trapped. Women are victims, and so are you.”― John Irving, The Cider House Rules
“If we lived in a culture that valued women's autonomy and in which men and women practiced cooperative birth control, the abortion issue would be moot.”― Christiane Northrup, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing
Poems/Songs.
You want to keep
the blood and the milk hidden
as if the womb and breast
never fed you
Rupi kaur
feel it. the thing you don’t want to feel. feel it. and be free.
Nayyirah Waheed
***
It shouldn’t affect anyone
what we do with our bodies
least of all those who haven’t
walked a day in our shoes
Rupi kaur
Thoughts.
I sat in a circle of women not long ago when the conversation came up, abortion. 8 or 9 of us. Book club. On a sunny Saturday afternoon sitting on picnic rugs by the beach, under a tree. We were having drinks and snacks.I don’t know how the conversation began, but it’s one I’m happy to be a part of. I’d always been pro-choice and five years ago had my own moment to choose.
As we sat in the circle some 6 out of us had, once upon a time, had an abortion. It was a revelatory conversation as, even though it’s legal in Australia, it’s still not a piece of information we women offer up without a sense of intrepidation. ‘What will she think? What’s her opinion?’ The thoughts waft around in our minds.
In saying that, that most of my friendship circle has had an abortion at some point in time; it’s understandable that the overturning of Roe Vs Wade in America has shaken my heart and soul. What does it really mean? Here’s my take on the situation.
By overturning the Roe Vs Wade decision which stated that abortion was a constitutional right; the Supreme Court has deemed that the issue of abortion be in the control of each of the 50 states. According to a 2021 article by reproductive research and policy organisation Guttmacher Institute which has been ammended this year - up to 26 of the 50 states are certain or likely to ban abortion with Roe Vs Wade upholding consitutional rights.
Read more here: https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/10/26-states-are-certain-or-likely-ban-abortion-without-roe-heres-which-ones-and-why
So what does that mean
? It means women in these states who fall pregnant for any number of reasons and do not want to keep the child including rape, incestual rape, gang rape, rape within marriage, a broken condom, failed birth control and any other plethora of reasons cannot access safe, supported abortion in their state. They will either have to travel, sometimes hundreds of kilometers to a state where abortion is legal. OR procure an illegal abortion; some of which may not be safe and cause septic pregnancies or face prison time if caught. Or, have the unwanted child. Which can lead to psychological, emotional, financial struggle.
As someone who went to a clinic and obtained a very affordable oral abortion treatment the idea of any of the above outcomes when I was pregnant make me want to cry. Imagine young women and girls who have been raped, who have been through so much trauma already and then having to give birth to the child of the rapist?
Imagine if all six women in my circle of friends had another mouth to feed. Their lives would have taken different courses, education wouldnt’ have been completed their paygrade much less than it currently is, their lives even more complicated.
I just can’t imagine the struggles and hardship this will cause, particularly for those in lower socioeconomic situations. In my reading this morning one article said that the rich will know people and be able to access safer abortions when required; legal or not. But those with less means will be the ones who suffer. Forced into unsafe abortions with people who have little to no medical knowledge leading to illness and even death. Or, forced to have a child they do not want and potentially cannot support.
Where’s the sense in this?
This morning alone I’ve read some posts about making men more culpable. As in, why is the woman lumped with the responsibility? Why don’t we enforce that all young men have a compulsory vasectomy that will be reversed when they are ready to have children. Which has caused heated arguments in facebook threads and I’m sure over dinner tables around the world.
But, I must agree, it seems that birth control has always been on the woman. Take hormones, put a rod in your arm, put a coil in your vagina. It’s always our bodies that are impacted by birth control excepting the condom. Which, we all agree is not anyone’s favourite form of birth control even if it is in use.
I’ve also read a few questions about whether or not the decision to overturn Roe Vs Wade could find it’s way to Australia. In all of our states and territories abortion is legal. As far as I can read and to my knowledge of Australian society I don’t think the case will impact Australian legislation. Overturning Roe Vs. Wade merely gave the power of banning abortion back to each state. In Australia that is already the case and in each and every state and territory we have been through the process and each one has made their own laws legalising access to safe abortion.
It’s not to say that these laws cannot be overturned. However, I also believe our Australian society to be far less religious than America. I also believe we are far less active in the anti-abortion activism. We even have laws here banning protesters from clinics so women and their health care providers can be safe and unhassled (we’ve all seen the movie scenes depciting the situation in the Us - the teenager goes to the clinic with the aid of a friend, aunt or even alone and on her way into the dingy clinic which is already dispiriting, there’s one or two (or more) people outside the clinic waving pamphlets, holding placards, shrieking at them not to kill their child, that they are murderers. We avoid that indignity here in Australia thanks to these laws.
The decision to overturn Roe Vs Wade and the ripple effect this will have through the American and global society upsets me. I’m upset for women and girls who will be forced into situations that could so easily be resolved. I’m upset that we live in a society that is so narrow minded. I’m grateful to live in Australia. I’m grateful I had access to an abortion. I am grateful I don’t currently have a five year old child. I’m grateful I have a place to share my voice. I’m grateful for the freedoms afforded me.
Be bold,
Katrina