Are You Paying Attention?
Why Reproductive Rights Should Concern Everyone
In 2019, I wrote an article about the challenges to Roe vs. Wade that were lining up through the courts. At that time, Donald Trump had nominated two justices to the Supreme Court. It was not looking great for Roe, and that was before Amy Coney Barrett was put on the bench. I ended my article with this, “More and more, we are watching our democracy fall into the hands of very few, and if the few control everything, it won’t matter what is politically popular. And what happens then?”.
We are getting a glimpse into the answer now. Texas passed one of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in recent history, and it went unchecked by the Supreme Court. Now, a Mississippi law that bans almost all abortions after 15 weeks has made its way up to the docket. While the “shadow docket” was in play for the Texas law, the Mississippi case is the most direct challenge of Roe in decades.
In listening to the arguments, it’s not looking good. It appears the justices are on track to severely limit Roe. While that would be a victory for anti-choice activists, it would be a major blow to autonomy in the United States. The research is also pretty clear that it would not limit abortions nearly as much as activists would like to think.
We have decades of research behind us related to the abortion debate, and that research shows significant findings: abortion rates go down when we have reliable, affordable contraception and good sex education. Those two factors have a profound impact on our pregnancy rates, especially among teens. It turns out if we just educate people and then give them options, they are less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy. Good for everyone, right? You would think so, but what we find is that conservative states severely limit those two things, and so abortion rates go up.
As these newest laws attempt to temper Roe, some pretty craven arguments have emerged. Justice Barrett suggested that giving a baby up for adoption wasn’t any more burdensome than an abortion. Tell that to women that have to go through 9 months of pregnancy and then childbirth. The expense alone is unimaginable for some. Dr. Ingrid Skop, an obstetrician in San Antonio who belongs to the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said that even a girl as young as 9 or 10, impregnated by a father or a brother, could carry a baby to term without health risks.
Let that sink in.
She could carry a baby to term without health risks.
As a social scientist, I take great offense to that statement. Physical health is not the only health we have to think about in these cases. A doctor that does not consider that is doing irreparable harm to a patient. Just because the patient *can* doesn’t mean the patient *should*. It is a critical distinction and one that is clearly overlooked in this case.
It’s also really important to remember that reproductive rights concern everyone. As those rights are chipped away, men will likely see how much they have benefited from this system. Even those that are pro-life might find a very different world post-Roe.
However, as with so many things related to humans, the recognition of these consequences will come too late. We are already experiencing them now, and Roe is still technically in tact. When it has been stripped of all of its meaning, we will realize how important it was.
