Roe Overturned, Forces Women and Girls To Bear Their Rapist’s Child

The US Supreme court’s ruling sets the rights of women back centuries

Roe v. Wade established that a woman’s right to abortion is a woman’s right to privacy. It held that the Texas Penal Code’s restriction of a woman’s right to abortion violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The decision gave women a constitutional right to abortion, allowing abortions before the fetus acquires extra-uterine viability (maternal viability), that is, before the 24th to 28th week of pregnancy. This has shaped almost the next fifty years of women’s rights and abortion.

However, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, Roe v. Wade was overturned 5-4, with conservative Justice Samuel Alito writing in the lead opinion that the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade was wrong.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade means that abortion is not a constitutional right for women and that the states will decide the laws and procedures governing abortion.

Thirteen states currently have “trigger acts,” meaning that when Roe v. Wade is no longer in effect, the bans and procedures will automatically go into effect in those states. These states are Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.

Most of these states do not make exceptions for rape and incest. In some ways, this will profoundly impact abortion safety for American women.

Making abortion would exacerbate the dangerous level of abortion, with people having to resort to clandestine, unsafe abortions, especially those who cannot afford to travel or seek private care for the great dangers of these informal abortion procedures.

In some states, it is difficult for women to travel to other areas to have an abortion. Texas, for example, has a law that allows ordinary citizens to sue anyone they believe may be involved in helping a pregnant woman get an abortion and reward them. In addition, pregnancies resulting from rape and incest can not be aborted, which only causes more harm to women. It further damages their emotional and mental health, and numerous cases lead to physical damage to their reproduction system or death.

The effects of the abortion ban will cause harm to women and also a newborn child born. Women who become pregnant from rape or incest are likely to abandon their children. Low-income people who cannot have abortions will find it challenging to give their children adequate care and attention. These children are likely to be denied a healthy and warm environment during childhood. And when these children grow up, studies show they will likely face dire economic and emotional conditions.

In response to the ruling, U.S President Joe Biden believes that this result is “jeopardizing the health of millions of women, some without exceptions.”

He added the overturning of Roe V Wade is,” so extreme that women could be punished for protecting their health, so extreme that women and girls who are forced to bear their rapist’s child — of the child of consequence, so extreme that doctors will be criminalized for fulfilling their duty to care.”