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 Roe v Wade: The History and Looming Future of Our Nation

Passed in 1973, the monumental decision of Roe v. Wade ruled that the Constitution of the United States would protect the liberty of a women’s decision to have an abortion during the first trimester of her pregnancy, permitting minimal to no governmental imposition. In doing so, the ruling struck down a multitude of in tack U.S. laws on both federal and state levels, igniting the infamous debate between pro-choice and pro-life parties. The case of Roe v Wade was first instigated after Jane Roe, a pseudonym for 22 year old Norma McCorvey, sought to have an abortion in Texas in 1969 after falling pregnant for the third time whilst unmarried and unemployed. However, Roe’s plight was rejected by the in place Texas law which ruled abortions to be illegal with the exception to save the life of the mother. Texas’ law further denied Roe the right to travel to a neighboring state in order to receive an abortion to which point Roe filed a claim against Texas state, arguing that the overly vague law ultimately infringed her constitutional rights. Being that the case was only brought to the Supreme Court in 1973, Roe was forced to carry out her pregnancy to term, ultimately having to put her child up for adoption shortly after due to her lack of resources. Through the decision of the Supreme Court, it was agreed that the law had infringed on women’s right to privacy and violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment within the U.S. Constitution. The decision of Roe v. Wade would nationally protect a women’s component of liberty, allowing her to terminate a pregnancy within the first trimester without governing restrictions. However, since the passing of 1973, conservative states have chipped away at the imposed abortion rights through the administration of several laws effecting women’s rights– an example being a relatively new law Texas has passed which bans most abortions past the the sixth week of pregnancy. In nearly 50 years since its founding, Roe v Wade has been debated and opposed countless times, yet the integrity of the institution has held steadfast. For the first time in our nation’s history, the case of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization threatens the longevity of the landmark precedent. If the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, abortion access could be limited to less than half of the United States, forcing women of any situation to carry their pregnancies to term if unable to access the calculated handful of abortion protecting states. Such an occurrence would not only infringe the rights of women around the country but would in turn jeopardize the mental, physical, and financial health of such individuals whose situations would lack any governmental support. In what kind of state would America be left in socially if the Supreme Court were to dismantle a legislation once passed to directly protect the rights and personal liberties of women across the nation? 

A future without the protection of Roe v. Wade would depict more than twenty potential states outlawing or restricting abortions, all of whom have either instilled a “trigger law” which would take effect immediately after the Supreme Court ruling or pre-Roe abortion bans that are already in place. In such cases, while all women would be implicated, women of color would bear the brunt of such circumstances as statistics have shown that Black and Hispanic women receive abortions at higher rates. Furthermore, women of color experience higher rates of poverty than white women which perpetuates the challenge to receive treatment as traveling to abortion protecting states can be costly. Not only is denying a woman her right to seek abortion treatment and forcing her to carry a pregnancy to term morally and ethically wrong, but in doing so a women can become subject to negative long term health effects. A study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco found that women are in fact both mentally and physically harmed in consequence of being denied abortions. There are a plethora of  reasons why a woman would not want to carry a pregnancy to term, and by forcing her to do so can subject her to increased economic hardships, a greater likelihood of raising the child alone, as well as various mental and physical risks that can jeopardize both the quality of life for both my mother and child. At its core, the notion of taking a woman's rights away to force her to carry out a pregnancy that she does not desire is simply wrong and will lead to devastating outcomes within our nation that will not only implicate women, but society as a whole.  

Within Justice Alito’s leaked first draft of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, his opinion would explicitly overturn the Constitutional right to an abortion as he claims that the courts holdings to Roe v Wade have unclear, ambiguous roots to the Constitution. In essence, Alito makes the argument that the Constitution makes no reference to abortion, meaning that it does not implicitly protect a females liberty to find such treatment by any constitutional provision, including the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Not only is such an argument made against Roe v Wade detrimental to women’s current liberties, but such a claim made against what the Constitution does and does not explicitly protect opens Pandora's box for what can be defamed next. Take this into consideration: the US Constitution was written in 1787 amidst a radically different time and social climate. Matters of abortion, racial equality, sexual orientation, and women’s equality hadn’t even been considered within that era yet today we have evolved into a society which has fought to protect such rights governmentally. By undermining what is currently considered a woman's constitutional right to seek abortion treatment, the conservative party could window an opportunity to redirect or invalidate other notions that have been passed throughout the progression of our society which can consequentially have devastating effects on our nation’s people.


Sources:

https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/supreme-court/explaining-alitos-leaked-draft-opinion-overturning-roe-v-wade/

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1096094942/roe-wade-overturned-what-happens-next

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/what-is-roe-v-wade-overturned-b2071179.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-is-roe-v-wade

https://globalnews.ca/news/8805134/roe-v-wade-u-s-supreme-court-decision-explained/

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