Abortion continues to be a controversial topic within the United States. Despite the supreme court ruling of Roe vs. Wade, which safeguarded abortion nationally in 1973, people are continuing to fight for legal abortions. Historically, opinions on abortion rights in the United States have been divided among party lines, with Democratic and Republican legislators opposing each other on accessibility and legality of abortion. Former president Donald Trump heavily advocated overturning Roe vs. Wade, while current president Joe Biden wants to pass a federal law that protects a person’s right to an abortion. While twelve US states have laws that regulate and limit the use of abortion, Biden is advocating for a bill that will legalize abortions within the United States (Rolfes-Haase & Swers, 2021). This paper examines the different ways United States legislators have used their power to politicize abortion and argues that the future of abortion rights will continue to be uncertain as long as it is politicized.
The bioethical issue of abortion rights has divided the US parties into pro-life and pro-choice. Since the beginning of 2019, twelve US states have passed twenty-seven laws restricting abortion, nine of which being especially harsh. The most stringent of these was signed by the Governor of Alabama Kay Ivey, a member of the Republican Party. According to him, carrying out an abortion at any stage of pregnancy threatens the doctor with imprisonment for a term of 10 to 99 years, even when conception occurred as a result of rape or incest (Starrs, 2017). The only exceptions are cases when a woman’s health is in danger. Several other states, governed by the Republican Party, have passed the so-called fetal heartbeat bill, which prohibits abortion after the fetus has a heartbeat – usually in the sixth week of pregnancy. The first such law was passed in the state of North Dakota in 2013 (Starrs, 2017). Now similar rules have been established in Georgia, Ohio, and Mississippi. In Missouri, abortion has been banned after the eighth week of pregnancy. A particularly acute struggle in this state is around the only clinic that performs such surgeries.
Republicans have always voiced their concerns against abortion for several years as they claim they are pro-life. For example, during his presidency, Donald Trump has implemented a strict conservative program that marginalized abortion. Personnel changes under Trump have not spared the Supreme Court, which has a decisive voice on the abortion issue. Since 2017, the former president has surrounded the decision made in 1973 with constraining amendments that narrow the possibilities for the legalization of abortion (Starrs, 2017). In January 2020, Trump attended the annual anti-abortion rally in Washington, known as the March for Life (Jones et al., 2020). He sought the support of Catholics in the 2016 and 2020 elections by promising to overturn the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortions (Rolfes-Haase & Swers, 2021). He appointed Amy Coney, a conservative and anti-abortionist, to the Supreme Court, which gave the Republicans an outright majority. Under Trump’s presidency, the conservative states have become bolder in taking steps to keep abortion to a minimum.
Millions of Americans have voiced their concern against the wave of abortion bills in 2019 across several states in the country. In 2020, when eleven states sought to restrict access to abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic, several stakeholders went to court seeking to stop the executive orders from going into effect (Jones et al., 2020). A significant percentage of Democrats have been supporting the legalization of abortion. Some legislators have openly voiced their concerns seeking a federal law that will protect the right of women to access abortion. States controlled by the Democrats have been seeking to legalize abortion and make it easier for women to access the service. When the Montana state legislature was debating four bills on abortion in January 2021, Democrats voted for the right of women to access the procedure (Samuels, n.a). President Joe Biden campaigned on the platform of federally legalizing abortion across the United States, which gained him the support of many Democrats (Rolfes-Haase & Swers, 2021). Biden claims that women should not be denied access to abortion as it is their right, and this should be protected. The Democrats’ support has been immense for pro-abortionists in the country.
The Democrats seek to create a future where women can have access to abortion across all states in the country. In January 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that allowed US aid for abortion providers and non-governmental organizations that support the procedure (Rolfes-Haase & Swers, 2021). The executive order reversed the ban on federal funds allocated to international organizations that perform or inform abortions. In an October 2020 campaign, Biden promised to make Roe v. Wade “the law of the land” in support of abortions across all the states (Rolfes-Haase & Swers, 2021). However, this might be a challenge primarily as the Supreme Court is controlled by conservative, Republican-appointed judges who might rule against the law.
Taking into account that opinions on abortion rights in the United States vary from state to state and are divided between the Democrats and the Republicans, the issue of reproductive health is highly politicized. Today, various political movements use this problem to their advantage. From a legal point of view, in the United States, it is easy to do it since the very concept of abortion has not yet been introduced into the US legislation. Eligibility is governed by a lower-level decision, the 1973 Roe vs. Wade case law. However, if a verdict was passed by one court in due time, then another can reconsider or cancel it. It means that as long as this issue remains politicized, it will not be resolved.
References
Jones, R. K., Lindberg, L., & Witwer, E. (2020). COVID‐19 abortion bans and their implications for public health. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 52(2), 65-68.
Rolfes-Haase, K. L., & Swers, M. L. (2021). Understanding the gender and partisan dynamics of abortion voting in the house of representatives. Politics & Gender, 1-35. Web.
Samuels, I. (2021). Republican-controlled states advance bills to limit abortion. ABC News. Web.
Starrs, A. M. (2017). The Trump global gag rule: An attack on US family planning and global health aid. The Lancet, 389(10068), 485-486. Web.