The disclosure of an internal document from the United States Supreme Court on Monday May 2, seems to confirm that the institution would be ready to return to almost fifty years of case law protecting the right to abortion. If, as is expected, the court reversed Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood c. Casey (1992), the question would immediately become a prerogative from the federated states. However, this would represent a real danger to the health of people of childbearing age, who live, for the majority of them, in a state considered to be “hostile” to abortion (58 %, according to the Guttmacher Institute). Some of these states have already adopted “trigger laws”, laws that would immediately enter into force if the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health [file which could lead to the questioning of the jurisprudence Roe v. Wade] put an end to any constitutional protection of the right to abortion.
These anti-abortion laws, which may be applied very quickly in the majority of states (twenty-six out of fifty, still according to the Guttmacher Institute), threaten the health of all people likely to be pregnant. History has indeed shown us that prohibiting abortion does not end the practice but relegates to the much more dangerous sphere of hiding. Estimates on the number of annual abortions practiced in the country before roe v. Wade vary from 200,000 to 1.2 million. These abortions were sometimes carried out by qualified doctors or health professionals who braved laws which they estimated contrary to their care obligations. In this case, operating outside an official care system made interventions more dangerous. The reality of abortion was also, for many isolated and desperate women, to use less safe methods, in particular by trying to cause a miscarriage. Even if the image is unpleasant, it is for this reason that the metal hanger has become a symbol of the period preceding ROE V. Wade!
Unjustified constraints
At that time, privileged women had more easily access to a sure abortion than poor women. Today, the same inequalities can already be observed. States which are preparing to prohibit abortion, mainly in the center and in the south of the country, are among the poorest (let us quote for example Mississippi or Louisiana). In these regions, people from ethnic and racial minorities are most likely to feel the impact of a total or partial prohibition of abortion. In Mississippi, while 38 % of the population is black, 74 % of abortions concern American Africans (according to the Kaiser Family Foundation). The situation, already complicated in this state which has only had only one clinic practicing abortions (the Jackson Women’s Health Organization of the expected judgment soon), would prove to be dramatic. Illinois would then become the nearest destination, but would not necessarily be accessible for the most vulnerable people who could, for example, not miss a few days of work, pay the cost of the trip or have their children keep …
You have 46.04% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.