By Catherine Gregson
On 24th June 2022, Roe v Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court. In the USA, Supreme Court justices are chosen personally by the president and serve for the duration of their lives. This means whoever is chosen has power for potentially decades. The nine members that comprise the Supreme Court voted on whether to overturn the abortion ruling in June – five out of these nine members voted in favour of this. These were Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas (who has also asked for ruling on same-sex marriage and contraception to be brought into question), Justice Brett Kavanaugh (who was elected by Donald Trump and has himself, faced investigations into alleged sexual assault), Justice Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett (both elected by Trump also). Subsequently, Olivia Rodrigo bravely named these individuals, on stage at Glastonbury Festival in the UK, before dedicating Lily Allen’s ‘F*ck You’ to each of them and performing it with Allen.
After the overturning of the abortion laws in the USA, a number of states began to place restrictions against abortion. For those supreme court judges and number of republicans who argued that the ruling would only mean devolving the power to state level and putting it ‘back in the hands of the people’: 13 states already had ‘trigger laws’ in place, meaning they immediately became active as soon as the abortion laws were overturned. There’s nothing democratic about that. US states which had these trigger laws already in place include Texas, North Dakota, Tennessee and Utah. The first state effected by it’s trigger law was Missouri, meaning that it was the first state in the USA to effectively ban abortion. A significant number of these 13 states do not have exceptions for abortions in cases of rape or incest, and in some of these states there have been moves to ban purchasing abortion pills or aid online.
Women now don’t even feel safe on their phones. In the wake of the overturning of Roe v Wade, many women have deleted period tracking apps from their mobile phones. These apps are useful and used by many women so they can receive predictions on when their periods will occur, thus they can prepare and plan around them. Women are deleting them because of reports that the data collected and stored in relation to their periods could be used in evidence in cases of attempting to prove abortion has occurred. For example, if there is a lack of data entered over a few months of a woman logging the occurrence of her period, but then this was to start again (after the pause in data logged), then this could be taken as evidence that said woman was pregnant at that time and aborted the baby. None of the popular apps, such as ‘Flo’ or ‘Clue’ can guarantee user’s safety since location data is logged also. Moreover, ‘Flo’ has already had issues with reported data sharing previously. This was revealed in a piece by the Wall Street Journal, where it was reported that the app notified Facebook when a woman had logged her period. This further increases vulnerability for women living in states where abortion is at risk, since because of the rise of capitalist surveillance they are forced into a constant state of paranoia where even their devices may work against them.
This furthers the idea that the USA is a first world country with increasingly third world laws. Since the 1990s, around 60 nations have liberalised their laws around sexual health, with stereo typically strictly religious nations, such as Mexico, having increased abortion access. The US government is supposed to support the values of ‘equality, liberty and justice’, but in the wake of the abortion overruling, this just seems ironic. It is an example of the further erosion of US democracy. The overturning of Roe v Wade occurred in an almost autocratic manner; the elected President had no power to stop it from happening. The decision wasn’t put to ordinary citizens, whom this primarily concerns, it was kept in the hands of elite Supreme Court justices. This brings into question what else could occur without the consent of citizens, it’s a scary reality. Many people took to twitter to draw comparisons between Margaret Atwood’s ‘Gilead’ and the current state of America. Indeed, it scarily seems that the USA is moving in this direction more and more each day, with Republicans increasingly using extremist Christian reasoning for inhibiting women’s rights. Atwood, herself, tweeted on 11th July a picture of herself holding a mug which read “I told you so”. The post was retweeted numerous times and earnt more than 65,000 likes.
The abortion ruling in the USA creates ramifications for the rest of the world. The move has brought hope to pro-life supporters globally and given them reason to push further to restrict abortion rights. Even in nations where abortion is legalised and able to be practised safely, there are concerns that this could bring it into question and potentially mean abortion rights become limited. Furthermore, the occurrences in America could fuel negative stigma internationally towards women who receive abortions. It sets the international example that women’s abortion rights don’t deserve to be protected and aren’t important enough to be included in human rights. This can be witnessed in Africa, where in Malawi, legislation to expand abortion rights has been delayed as a result of the overturning of Roe v Wade. The same concerns are occurring in Ethiopia too.
Moreover, this risks abortion rights in the UK too. Only earlier this year did the Department of Health attempt to scrap the ‘pills by post’ safe abortion scheme, which was implemented during lock down. This was only halted by the House of Commons, after hearing a collection of evidence about why the scheme was useful and saved money for sexual health services. This erodes democratic practice in the UK too, since this was first brought into question by Christian backbench Conservative MPs, without the consent of British citizens. To further this, there has been a rise in pro-lifers gathering outside abortion clinics and shouting at women who go to use their services, making the users uncomfortable – in the already very emotional and difficult circumstance they are in. The overriding of Roe v Wade only gives pro-life supporters reason to protest further.
Yet pro-choice activists refuse to give up. On Saturday 9th July thousands of citizens gathered on a march in Washington D.C. to protest against the abortion ruling. This was organised by ‘Women’s March’ as part of their ‘Summer of Rage’ movements against the curtailing of women’s rights. This was live streamed on their Instagram and was very inspiring to watch. You could hear chants of “we won’t go back”, “disobey”, “two, four, six, eight, you can’t make us procreate” … Some of the protesters even tied themselves to gates. The rally was huge, with an estimate of 10,000 people taking part. ‘Women’s March’ have a whole host of events planned across the summer in protest of the abortion ruling, these are all on display on their website.
A doctor in California has said she will build a floating abortion clinic off the coast of Texas so that people needing safe abortions in southern states that now cannot access them, can use the service. The website, where this is being advertised says that it will offer safe abortions for women for up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. It will also offer contraception too. The doctor is under the impression (with advice from her legal team) that, since it will be in the sea, it will be untouchable by state laws. This will help ordinary citizens to be able to access safe abortions and sexual health care.
The overturning of Roe v Wade has been a devastating step backwards for women’s rights in the USA, and the shockwaves of this will be felt worldwide. It is proof that democracy is under threat in America, since this was able to happen without the consent of citizens, or even the elected President. However, there is hope. There are many examples throughout history where protest has worked and resulted in abortion rights being granted in nations. For example, in Portugal the 1998 referendum to decriminalise abortion failed, because of low voter turnout. However, after huge protests swept the nation and a campaign was formed (using Paula Rego’s artwork) to educate people on the issue, the 2007 referendum result meant abortion was successfully legalised nationwide. In America, pro-choice supporters refuse to sit back and accept the Roe v Wade ruling being overturned. Let the ‘Summer of Rage’ burn on.
Abortion Resources:
· A link to Women’s Health Clinic, with abortion resources: https://womenshealthclinic.org/what-we-do/abortion/abortion-resources/
· A link to National Network of Abortion Funds, where you can find your local abortion fund and donate: https://abortionfunds.org/funds/
· Access to abortion pills: https://www.womenonweb.org/
· Access to abortion pills: https://aidaccess.org/
· Donate to the Repro Legal Defense Fund: https://reprolegaldefensefund.org/
· Donate to Keep Our Clinics: https://keepourclinics.org/
· Donate to We Testify: https://www.wetestify.org/abortion
