Women’s Rights Are Fading

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Tonight, my sister and I were watching a show when our phones lit up with breaking news about a leaked document that is showing that Roe v. Wade is in huge trouble. My heart literally dropped into my stomach. A case that was established in 1973 when the world was even more against women than it is now, ruled that women had control over their reproductive rights. These same rights are about to be stepped on by old, conservative lawmakers.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/leaked-us-supreme-court-decision-suggests-majority-set-overturn-roe-v-wade-2022-05-03/

First, I want to talk about my personal opinions on abortion, birth control, and a woman’s right to become pregnant. I am pro-woman. I believe that a woman has a right to her own reproductive freedom and complete control over anything that affects her body or person.

I would never be able to make that decision to have an abortion out of personal choice, but that does not mean that I have the right to take that away from someone else. I support them and their choice. It’s easy for me to support these choices that other women choose to partake in because government intrusion on someone’s body is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

Birth control to prevent pregnancy are important, and in contrast the use of untraditional methods to get pregnant are also important. I support these choices too.

Now that you have my clear stance on reproductive freedom, let’s talk about how Roe v. Wade became precedent in the first place. I want to start with this quote in the syllabus of the case because there is HUGE importance in it.

“A person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, based on the right to privacy contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Viability means the ability to live outside the womb, which usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks after conception.”

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

I bolded the words above that say, “Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” in this holding because this decision being overturned will set women’s right back 50+ years and challenges our Due Process rights under the Constitution.

A government entity, or better yet in current times…entities, are telling a woman when she is allowed to end a pregnancy. Roe was a single, pregnant women, and she wanted to end her pregnancy via abortion with a safe doctor. It was hard to find a safe doctor to perform these procedures due to them being considered illegal.

Before Roe was passed, women were going to back alley abortion “doctors”, if you want to call them that, to get their pregnancies ended, and they ended up most times with sepsis from dirty instruments and some even died. I will add more to this section as I get more statistics, but taking abortions away as an option is dangerous.

That’s a scary thought that we could go back to these kind of abortions because the world wants to infringe on someone’s right through courts and laws. If that is not scary enough, you will be scratching your chin and really thinking on the next worry of this decision being overturned…

If you are not familiar with the 14th Amendment, it states:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.“

The Constitution of the United States, 14th Amendment

There are two forms of due process. One is procedural and the other is substantive. According to Cornell Law, “Substantive due process has been interpreted to include things such as the right to work in an ordinary kind of job, marry, and to raise one’s children as a parent” (Legal Information Institute, 2022).

Procedural is the regular process that we think of when going to court and getting in front of a judge, etc. after charges have been filed against us.

Both of these are substantial to freedoms granted by our Constitution in both the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, just to name a few. Now, let’s look back at the wording of the case syllabus in Roe v. Wade. In the primary holding, it speaks of the due process clause that is in the 14th Amendment. Are you ready for the scary part?

ANY and EVERY case that set precedent that has been decided under the Due Process Clause will now be challenged.

This is not a scare tactic. It is in the verbiage of overturning a precedent that was set in 1973! Things are going to get ugly folks! For women, you might as well say Margaret Atwood’s book called The Handmaid’s Tale will come true. It’s radical just like that series portrays when the Roe decision is overturned. (If you have never watched the series, you may want to…or at least read the book.)

A real time example is that women in Texas are going to Oklahoma to get abortions, so Oklahoma passed an abortion ban. I think Alabama was the first I heard about to do put strict restrictions, and from what the document sounds like in the article from Reuters, the Supreme Court is going to put it in the hands of state lawmakers on making the choice whether it will be illegal in their states. It’s sickening to me.

I know there is more that I wanted to say, but my heart just became really heavy thinking about the damage that has been done to this country. It’s hard to be proud to live in a place that has the highest incarceration rate, wrongful conviction rate, and that oppresses the rights of others in the name of law and order. For those that want to say, “Leave then if you don’t like it here…”, the only words I have for you is “I stay to fight you for those that have no voice.”

I will end with this… Silence is violence. If you are not an ally, you are an adversary.

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Works Cited:

Legal Information Institute. 2022. “Due Process”. Cornell Law, WEX. Retrieved from: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_process.