Since the Supreme Court’s Roe V. Wade ruling in 1973, around one out of every three pregnancies has resulted in abortion. It is one of the most difficult and contentious problems, sparking passionate legal, political, and ethical arguments. The modern abortion issue involves a clash of conflicting moral concepts as well as essential human rights: the right to life, the right to privacy, and the freedom to regulate one’s own body. The decision by the supreme court to overturn the Roe Vs Wade case was not only one of the risky and impulsive decisions ever made with numerous future risks to women but also wrong and unfair decisions that should be thrown out. Nonetheless, the court in its decisions did not factor in whether it was only women’s constitutional right to decide and what happens to them medically ending the earlier constitutional rights granted to women.
No woman can be free unless she has authority over her own body. That has been the pro-choice slogan throughout history, and it is as true today as it was then, and it stems from the equally strong notion that males should keep their noses out of reproductive rights. It is little surprise that the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday 24th June to reverse the landmark Roe V. Wade ruling, which protected the right to abortion in the United States, erased decades of legal precedent and opened the path for about half of all states to outlaw the operation, struck such a chord (Roe v. Wade, 2022). The ruling failed to address key pertinent issues like women’s constitutional right to abortion thus bringing controversies with many questioning the leadership at the Supreme Court as far as women’s constitutional rights are concerned.
By overturning the case, the Supreme Court returns abortion decisions back to individuals and to their elected representatives. Because there is no federal law supporting the right to abortion in the United States, the decision to overturn ‘Roe’ leaves abortion laws completely up to the states. This illustrates how impulsive the judges were without no much consideration of the impact it will have. The potential overturning of Roe V. Wade will not only this generation but possibly generations to come, making it more difficult or practically impossible for women to get an abortion when they need one. For women who want to get an abortion, this poses a serious issue.
To have an abortion, they might need to find a different doctor or possibly move to another state. It would take time, money, and access to transportation to find a different medical practitioner or go out of state. All of these elements may have an impact on a woman’s capacity to undergo an abortion. Additionally, if states outlaw abortions, the number of abortions would increase in nearby states as people go out of state to get their procedures (Melese et al., 2017). Because of this, abortion rates may decrease in the state where they are prohibited but may rise in the bordering states, which obviously will not result in reduced national abortion rates.
Furthermore, unlike the constitutional right that applied to all, returning the issue back to the legislators poses a huge threat as far as how diverse people are when it comes to the issue. Most, if not all, of those who favor overturning Roe V. Wade, are against abortion because they believe that “killing a human being” is wrong (Cohen et al., 2021). This subject is so sensitive and challenging for politicians to come to a consensus on because of the diversity of perspectives that individuals have about it. There is no clear solution, which puts lawmakers in a difficult position because of how divided the public is on the issue. Members have been arguing for years without coming to a consensus. According to many pro-lifers, a fetus is a human being who should be treated as such; hence those who choose to kill them are effectively murderers. But a lot of people miss out on the fact that the woman carrying the fetus is also a living, breathing human being.
Finally, the Supreme Court’s decision is unconstitutional, wrong, and unfair to women and should be thrown out. The government is violating people’s right to bodily autonomy by removing their ability to decide whether or not to bear a kid. Is a fetus that has never left the womb more important than the person carrying it? The woman who is carrying it is living. It’s possible that they lack the mental or physical capacity to bear a kid. Or it could be that they simply don’t feel ready or that the time isn’t right. Abortions are seldom performed for amusement.
Since human rights are unalienable, rights cannot be in conflict with one another. The court’s decision on abortion presents a conflict between two rights that are in opposition to one another: the right to bodily autonomy for one class of people and the right to life for another. One interpretation of a bodily autonomy claim also appears to reduce another category of human beings to someone else’s property since it assumes a pregnant woman has the freedom to decide what she will do with her property, which includes the unborn child in her womb.
No one factor drives individuals to get abortions but there is only one justification for individuals to restrict abortions: they wish to have control over a woman’s body. By reversing Roe V. Wade, the government puts an unborn baby ahead of the woman bearing it. That is abhorrent and repugnant, given that the woman is also a human being who has the right to choose whether or not to bear a child. At the end of the day, women should be able to continue exercising their freedom to decide whether or not to get pregnant without fear of having that right restricted.
In conclusion, the Supreme Court’s ruling was an impulsive, risky decision that did not take into account women’s constitutional rights which will lead to future problems. Ending the women’s constitutional right and returning the decision back to elected representatives just illustrates how the court was impulsive in its decision with no future foresight on the implications. The subject is too sensitive and challenging and putting it back to the electorate would even further worsen the situation as it would be difficult to reach a consensus. There is no clear solution, which puts lawmakers in a difficult position because of how divided the public is on the issue.
Additionally, by violating the right to bodily autonomy, the ruling was unjust, wrong, and unconstitutional and should probably be thrown out. Besides, the court did not consider the conflicting nature of the two rights at hand, the right to bodily autonomy and the right to life. The ruling will also make it almost impracticable for women both now and in the generations to come to get an abortion. The ruling may have been taken with an aim to reduce the abortion rate in the country however, the opposite might be true. Abortion rates will only reduce in states that have banned it but increase in the others. The government should therefore reconsider some of its decision but also involve the public through participation to come up with the most viable ruling that will lessen all these burdens.
Reference
Cohen, I. G., Adashi, E. Y., & Gostin, L. O. (2021). The Supreme Court, the Texas Abortion Law (SB8), and the beginning of the end of Roe v Wade? Jama-Journal Of The American Medical Association, 326(15), 1473-1474.
Melese, T., Habte, D., Tsima, B., Mogobe, K., Chabaesele, K., & Rankgoane, G. et al. (2017). High Levels of Post-Abortion Complication in a Setting Where Abortion Service Is Not Legalized. PLOS ONE, 12(1), e0166287.
Roe v. Wade. 410. U.S 113. (2022). Web.