Making Sure Abortion is Safe, Legal, & Never Accessible
Recently (OK, if the past eight years count as recent), I’ve been fretting about the future of legal abortion in the United States. I’m 32 years old, and I appear to be one of few women in my age group worrying about this. When I ask my peers what their top issues in this election are, almost everyone says the environment, the economy, health insurance, and Iraq. Of course, these are all important issues, but it shocks me that no one is stressing about reproductive rights.
“Oh,” a friend of mine said casually when I asked her why not. “They’ll never overturn Roe v. Wade.”
What’s interesting is that she is correct – the Supreme Court probably won’t overturn Roe v. Wade, although John McCain states that he would like to bring it to an end. However, the reason that SCOTUS won’t say sayonara to Roe V. Wade is not because they understand that a woman’s ability to chose if and when to reproduce is essential to her lot in life. Rather, it is because it would scare the crap out of complacent women who thinks are rights are enshrined in the Constitution and also remove an issue that serves to mobilize evangelical and conservative voters.
Instead, the ruling justices on the Supreme Court prefer to chip and peel away at Roe. The result will be that the law of the land ensures safe, legal abortion is a right that no one can exercise. It’s been happening for quite some time already. First, the Justices ruled that asking a woman to wait 24 hours between her first appointment at a clinic and her actual procedure so she “can think about it” is not a barrier to exercising the right to an abortion. Except that 87% of counties in the US do not have a facility that offers abortions, and 35% of American women live in those areas. A full 25% of women travel more than 50 miles to obtain an abortion. So, the reality of the situation is that it takes a long time and a lot of money to travel to a clinic. Waiting another 24 hours likely makes it too expensive for women who also need to stay in hotels to “think about” what they are about to do. Sounds like an undue – i.e. – unconstitutional burden to me.
The Supreme Court recently upheld a law that ruled that doctors no longer had to consider whether a woman’s health was jeopardized during pregnancy, thus warranting an abortion, only whether her life was in immediate danger. So any pregnant woman who could be irreparably harmed by a pregnancy can no longer expect her personal condition to matter. Plus, certain late procedures used ONLY to save the lives of pregnant women have been banned, which the Supreme Court upheld, too. The message: you can have an abortion in theory, but good luck getting one when you need it.
These types of restrictions scare me, and they are more common every year. When I cast my vote in November, I want to be sure that I am voting for a candidate that supports my rights as a human being. I hope that more women will take this into consideration as well.
