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By: Arya Singh
On May 2, 2022, a draft opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court was leaked that would overturn the right to an abortion
established in the 1973 court case Roe v. Wade. This sequentially created a wave of tumultuous worry among the nation’s political landscape concerning the future reproductive and health equity rights for women in the U.S.
The official freedom of a woman’s right to choose began with Roe v. Wade in 1973: a landmark decision by the U.S. government which decided that individuals who have the ability to become pregnant also retain the ability to legally have an abortion without restrictions from the government. Prior to Roe v. Wade´s decision in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution being part of the right to privacy, abortions had been illegal throughout most of the U.S.
Outweighing any right claimed by an embryo or fetus, an individual birthing the child for situations of rape, incest, medical complications, or any other instance when their life is at risk is not at all acceptable. Essentially senseless to ban abortions anywhere in the world, unfortunately, it has been done before without any measures of justifiable reasoning.
There never lied any beneficiary elements for women themselves when anti-abortion movements arose, instead women’s fundamental rights were taken away. This denotes that there has yet to be an impressionable case as to how pro-life could possibly be a sensible measure to take in this country. Then again, the individuals under the pro-life movement seemingly did not consider what would benefit the those in need abortions
Healthcare rights for all people are listed in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution under the right of privacy and there isn’t any amount of government or religious authority that should be able to overturn that primary element. This specific healthcare right for individuals with a uterus needs to be viewed solely as a fundamental right for women and remain one in America for everyone to be able to get a safe abortion in their locations without an overwhelming sense of fear.
The fight for abortion rights isn’t a new one that has risen in recent times, protests have been going on for over centuries, and it’s one of many issues needed to go deeper towards achieving gender equality. If we can prevent the case of Roe v. Wade, our right to abortion from being overturned, that in it of itself is a huge achievement towards the start of ridding misogynistic attitudes in American society.
The history of abortion in the world
It’s essential to take a glance into the past history on abortion and the fight for abortion rights on both extreme spectrum's of pro-life and pro-choice; this is to develop an enhanced understanding on what shapes the way we approach and view what may be one of the most controversial issues in our world today.
An Egyptian medical text Ebers Papyrus first identified that an abortion could be induced by plant fiber, honey, and crushed dates. Abortion accepted early on in ancient Greek or Rome, Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C) went on to say that, “when couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun.” In contrast to Aristotle´s thinking, in the Roman Empire the Romans and and Greeks weren't too concerned with protecting the unborn, though they had an even stranger factor into play where the father´s opinion was considered even more than the child´s life.
According to ProCon.org,, this ideology was then able to advance further when abortion was considered in the Roman Empire,¨not as homicide but as a crime against a husband who would be deprived of a potential child.¨
Additionally, “quickening”, the first detachable movements of the fetus in the uterus, was around the 4th month of pregnancy and abortion was only allowed until before that stage in the U.S. late 19th century. Developed from British-common-law, this notion of abortion remaining moral for a certain amount of time until further development of the fetus correlates to the belief in today’s time where some believe that it is acceptable to proceed for an abortion so long as it is not after a few months into the pregnancy, or only if the abortion is a last resort.
Further down in history, dangerous drug-induced abortions took place in the 1820s and 1830s where women underwent abortions with these drugs that were proved fatal to them, though they continued to be advertised and sold. Abortion was regulated with poison control laws.
The gradual development of abortion coming into the world emphasizes a key point that women’s needs weren’t being tended to due to a lack of concern for a woman’s health overall.
In 1847, the formation of the American Medical Association was predominantly male-dominated, they believed that they should have the power to decide when an abortion should be legally performed. The AMA was ironically composed of physicians who lacked practice in this field representing the misogynistic approach to abortion from the very beginning, which evidently has influenced how it’s okay for the male dominated field to be heavily in control of omens’ bodies and what they can do with it.
Once a full-fledged prohibition was launched from the AMA’s campaign against abortion, it was instantly later taken into state legislatures to ban abortion. The backlash created a century of criminalization towards women providers for abortion. Before Roe v. Wade ended it, with a few exceptions to save the life or health of a patient, all states had laws to restrict abortion, when abortion became more outlawed there was a growing stigma following it side by side.
Ironically contrasting with the “My Body, My Choice” pro-choice abortion movement now, even though there’s lots of progress yet to be made, we have came a long way in reforming rights and creating a voice for women to express their ideas, even with dominating males in the medical fields by major pro-life beliefs.
Those who fall strictly or scarcely under a pro-life agenda have a long history behind how their belief system is formed and deeply rooted in the development of America’s deeply flawed, unjust democracy. No matter the intention for it, pro-life preachers inevitably, and destructively took away from the progress of achieving equity in women’s rights.
Following the path of collective beliefs of “pro-life” and discrimination towards the protection of healthcare for women, in 1910, there was an abortions ban nationwide. Doctors made the decision who were 95% men to further accentuate America´s underlying belief at the time that they were the ones to make that decision in whether individuals could undergo abortion, in most cases not letting it be a possibility.
Resulting in a high death toll since then, a resort to unsafe illegal abortion became the cause of death for nearly 2,700 women a century later in 1930. According to Guttmacher Institute, that was almost one out of every five recorded maternal deaths solely in that year.
How extreme and far did the discrimination need to go for individuals to realize that women deserved the concerns of navigating a safe and healthy abortion, with rights all throughout our country in order to do so?
With almost all hopes lost, a 1970 lawsuit was the start to reform in our country. A pregnant resident, Norma McCorvey was named as ¨Jane Roe¨ in courthouse documents when she filed the initial Roe v. Wade lawsuit at the Dallas federal district courthouse. She first claimed that the pregnancy was a result of rape then admitted she lied to increase her chances of procuring an abortion.
Though abortion wasn’t as liberalized previously, there were still developments in understanding that it was important to tend to complications with pregnancies and valuing the women’s lives even though for the most part it was still predominantly shamed upon, and even turned against.
Following Roe v. Wade, in 1976, Congress passed the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health, Education, and Welfare, and this had included an amendment ending Medicaid funding for abortions. It was known as the “Hyde Amendment¨, which has been renewed every year since it first started.
Recently in the past year, President Biden revoked the Hyde Amendment once again on Jan. 28, 2021 after President Bill Clinton rescinded the policy (Jan. 22, 1993), and had originally resided with a pro-life belief alongside with U.S. senate members today such as Joe Donnelly, Bob Casey, and Dan Lipinski who also do everything in their power to oppose these rights.
The Pro-life movement is specifically concerned with the safety of the life of the fertilized egg, and somehow sadistically no care for protection of the women’s life who is bringing the zygote into the world. Pro-life ideals do come in variations but for the most part with this mentality, the child’s welfare and precautions care after they’re born is not thought about, nor if the mother is able to support the child in any form. With an irresponsible approach to a child´s future, how could the life of the people who have unintended pregnancies, or need to get abortions for various other reasons be even merely considered?
Although pro-life theory is known to reduce risky sexual activity, is that reduction really comparable to the the death penalties created by abortion bans in the past?
Despite a clear notion of what’s more right, going pro-choice—it’s still a hard issue both politically, personally, and with the interpersonal perspectives of the nation.
According to Time, A closely representative set of Americans said in their own words how they feel, describing their own previous experiences. Lucinda, a representation of a typical 28-year-old Black Christian woman living in the South, paused in contemplation before speaking on the morality of abortion. Her perplexing pro-life view that still aid in the support for abortion, shows that anyone can choose to support women´s rights despite their view on it personally. She says, “Mostly I’m opposed to it, but it kind of depends.”
Lucinda believes that as much precaution to prevent the need for an abortion should be taken, she cringes at the idea of people, “just in and out of the abortion clinic.” “I think they should be more responsible. Don’t be such a loosey-goosey.”
Lucinda—who tells us that she’d answer “legal in certain circumstances” to a survey question on abortion—also shared that she “understands” how someone might take every precaution and still wind up pregnant.
To those that are married but want no more children, or whether a women cannot afford to have the child are two of the situations which motivate Lucinda to support the issue and her approach does reveal her open mindset on the issue.
Even though we have secure abortion methods today, and women should have control over their bodies, it´s best to use them sparingly so there´s no need to deal with any possible complications in the pregnancy that could negatively impact the individual´s health.
A sense of ownership does make sense for women to take in abortion cases where the need for termination of the pregnancy consisted of careless faults of their own. Yet, this notion will never justify a pro-life future for America.
As the internalized and externalized discrimination continued towards women, it took with it an increasingly high death toll of these people that could’ve made it had they underwent safe abortions. Nonetheless, eventually creating a conference on abortion legalization, Planned Parenthood publicly called for abortion law reform.
At last, procedures were successfully able to progress in safer forms as time went on after overcoming the deaths from illegal abortions and the final creation of the Conference on Abortion Legalization.
Doctors were allowed greater latitude to provide these services and this luckily improvised reproductive services in general, letting anyone of any economic circumstance have access to the reproductive healthcare.
In the past, the aspect that surprisingly brought even greater support for abortion law reform was when in the late 1950’s and early 60’s, thousands of pregnant women took a drug called thalidomide to ease the pregnancy systems. According to Planned Parenthood, “In 1962, a pregnant TV host who ingested thalidomide could not obtain a legal abortion in the United States. The media tracked her journey to get an abortion in Sweden, and 52% of Americans supported her.” This brought a greater support for the reform, by finally highlighting that it was a matter of abortion either being done safely or illegally while risking lives in America.
Going pro-choice
A new line of thinking represents the symbolic reasoning of why women should be able to have abortions, following that it’s one of the key decisions that women need to make to ensure that they can think for, and make crucial decisions for themselves. If, when, and with whom to grow a family should be viewed much more as a fundamental human right for women.
Empowered women, by making their own reproductive choices will aid in reaching equality for our nation overall. Accepting what procedure needs to be taken for the abortion can result in trauma before, during, and after the abortion has been done. It’s key to understand though, that the claims on abortion leading to depression, suicide, and causing cancer are arguments that aren’t the sole cause of abortion itself. Planned Parenthood resources can give ones who got an abortion a better insight on how to be more careful in the future, to be able to protect their bodies, and remain with a sense of being in control in what’ll happen to their bodies. Women, in this way, can understand what steps to take to prevent a future abortion.
If women get to keep this right and decide quicker to undergo an abortion if needed, they can prevent complications they might reach later in the process. In spite of that, fetuses feel no pain, person-hood begins after a fetus is able to survive outside the womb, not at conception, being when the abortion takes place. It’s the termination of a pregnancy, not a living baby itself, that hasn't been grasped by most people yet.
As a form of contraception, it is also proven that women who receive abortions are actually less likely to suffer chronic mental illnesses than those who are denied the abortion and are in desperate need of one.
The link between the concern of abortions affecting mental health, actually stresses the medical nature of pregnancy to abortion, enhancing that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is a medical decision.
According to ProCon.org, a peer reviewed study compared the mental health of women who received abortions to women denied abortions found that women who were denied them felt more regret and anger, and less relief and happiness than women who had abortions. Though for some women depending on their past medical history, it does take somewhat of a toll on their body, the same study founded that 95% of women who received abortions “felt it was the right decision” a week after the procedure.
Studies by the American Psychological Association (APA), the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC), and researchers at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health all concluded that assumed to be links between abortion and mental health problems are unfounded.
Along with aiding with the safe abortion procedures itself, resources such as Planned Parenthood also provide financial grants and funding for family planning services most harmed by racist systems; and fight for political improvements for global communities. They also help immensely with ridding the stigma in our nation.
Controversy on how early abortions should be allowed
Though it’s best to go for an abortion as quickly as possible due to the least amount of medical complications, that should not let abortion conform into a right that is only legal for a certain period of time. It needs to remain a law that allows abortion regardless of how many weeks of pregnancy the women have gone through.
Safe medical procedures today undergo three main forms of abortion: Vacuum Aspiration that occur in the first 12-13 weeks of pregnancy, Second Trimester up until 14 weeks, and Late-Term Abortion: Dilation and Extraction during any time after 14 weeks much further into the pregnancy.
When a June 2021 Gallup poll found that 56% oppose banning abortion after the 18th week of pregnancy, 58% oppose fetal heartbeat restrictions, 57% oppose abortion bans if the fetus is found to have a genetic disease; it goes to show that most of the conflict lives within what stage the fetus is at.
To further accentuate the subtle dominance of the pro-life side, in the government, 77% of the Democratic women identified as pro-choice, while 68% of Republican women identified as pro-life, Republican women were a backbone of opposing abortion rights in previous history.
Currently, the Senate Democrats’ bill to keep abortion legal nationwide fails to the GOP-led filibuster. A Women’s Health Protection Act, which had passed the House won 49 votes, falling far short of the 60 senators needed to break a filibuster. All 50 Republicans and Sen. Joe Machin voted against when proceeding to debate with a vote of 49-51. Realistically, there is currently very little hope in an actual possibility that the Roe v. Wade case will not be overturned.
In the case of protecting the law from being overturned, equal access and reproductive justice can be ensured by cracking down on violence at abortion clinics, making sure women are not discriminated against at work or anywhere else for the choices they make about their bodies; creating federal, statutory rights that parallel the constitution rights in Roe v. Wade.
Health disparities that lie among abortion
The primary concern in Roe v. Wade getting overturned is the health disparities that are difficult to deal with in various regions where the right is going to be taken away from the U.S. Those who need abortion most in safe forms are gonna be the ones losing it, and those folks are mainly composed of colored individuals.
Higher in the U.S. than most developed countries, Christine Dehlendorf, MD, MAS, Lisa H. Harris, MD, PhD, and Tracy A. Weitz, PhD, MPA from the National Center for Biotechnology Information provide that,
“Disparities in abortion rates also exist by socioeconomic status with women with incomes less than 100% of the federal poverty level having an abortion rate of 52 abortions per 1000 reproductive-age women, compared with a rate of 9 per 1000 among those with incomes greater than 200% FPL.¨
Call to action
On a state level, according to the fact that twenty-six states are expected to ban or restrict access to abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned, Clinics in neighboring states, predominantly Mississippi, Wyoming, and South Carolina are preparing for a surge in patients from states that limit access to abortion.
Also in support of abortion rights, this month of May, over a thousand activists in the U.S from New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles raised their voices and protested in a democratic hope that helps bring support to their party. In Washington, 20,000 people massed at the Washington monument, and marched along the National Mall past the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme court.
Local protesting and activism are being done to work on decreasing the stigma towards abortion on a community and interpersonal level. Locally, within San Ramon, two youth activists, Nishita Mukherjee and Arianna Hashemi advocate for and share their voice on the issue in the DVHS student community in San Ramon, California.
When asked about why they were protesting for pro-choice, despite it just being a basic healthcare right for women, they both thought of the same underlying aspect on why it needs to be done.
Hashemi states, “I am protesting for pro-choice because of the incorrectness of pro-life as well as considering the number of lives we will actually save by being pro-choice, plus, it has been statistically proven that most women who want an abortion have a low income, meaning that paying for all the fees to travel to neighboring states or paying for an appointment at an abortion clinic or buying pills is very overwhelming.”
Touching on the racial disparities, Hashemi provides a claim for why this right is important for women.
Mukherjee states her own opinion likewise, “Pro-life is misogynistic because it is only used when it comes to a females body.”
“The concept of pro-life isn’t a new one, but it is being used hypocritically, rather than fairly. People who are pro-life are also generally the people who trash on masks and vaccines saying it’s their body and choice, but then bash women for saying the same about their basic health rights. It is only used when conveniently women are involved, and then targeted against,” she adds on.
To be proactive, It´s time to call your local representatives, senators, and ask them to pass legislation to codify abortion rights for future generations and protect the sanity of women´s rights. There are only an abundance of benefits that can come from keeping this right of abortions in the U.S.
It´s entirely about aiming to have more open conversations about abortion in America, to not shame or look down upon it, but to instead build a foundational understanding that it is an important aspect of healthcare that cannot be undermined and should openly be taken to provide this key resource for anyone who comes across needing it.
True equality cannot be reached if this right is not ensured.