Last week, the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, removing the federal protection for the right to an abortion after nearly 50 years. The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization scrapped the precedent completely, effective immediately, allowing states to criminalize or otherwise restrict abortions without needing to consider fetal viability. And restrict they did, with several states enacting “trigger laws” that came into effect as soon as the decision was released. It was such a sudden seismic shift that many women seeking abortions were sent home the same day as all clinics closed in certain states, for fear of legal repercussions. Even in cases of rape or incest, or sometimes as a treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, there is no longer a legal guarantee that a ‘life-saving procedure’ will be protected everywhere. A culture of fear has taken over: fear of prosecution for performing an abortion, having an abortion, or seeking abortion-inducing medication. Fear of being suspected of ‘obtaining, aiding or abetting’ an abortion by someone going for a bounty. Fear of period-tracking app data or bank transactions being used to incriminate. Fear of needing a lifesaving abortion but being unable to access it, or of losing family planning services generally. Fear of being legally required to continue an unwanted pregnancy, whether conceived through rape/abuse or through an accident that would alter the entire trajectory of a young woman’s life. Unborn babies will be saved, sure, but with a spate of unintended consequences for women and society.
While I think the moral issue of abortion is worthy of enlightened democratic debate, I am shocked by the speed and heavy-handedness of the recent Court decision. Five justices, appointed not elected, were able to revoke a freedom (arguably the most significant instance of this since the 18th amendment jumpstarted Prohibition in 1919) on the spot, against the will of a majority of Americans according to polls. I would be more understanding if the Court took a narrow approach, like Chief Justice Roberts suggested, to allow the Mississippi law to impose a 15-week restriction on abortions and reconsider what stage of fetal development constitutes a ‘viable’ person with rights. Instead, the Alito draft and subsequent decision tore up, threw out, and lit on fire two generations of precedent in Roe and Casey. It’s a major victory for the conservative anti-abortion movement, which has been grooming the judiciary for many years to impose legal barriers on liberal policies at the federal level rather than entertain discussions on a policy compromise as you would in a democracy.
The tables have been flipped, upending years of settled law and clearing the space for more judicial activism. In the chaos that followed the Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court decided several other important cases, including one that broadly limits states from restricting the right to carry a gun in public. If Justice Thomas’s recent statements are to be believed, protections for gay marriage, access to contraception, Title IX and the equal rights amendment may be challenged in the high court soon. The unilateral decision-making, based on re-interpreting old text and often untethered from real world consequences, really concerns me. It’s not just the Supreme Court: the legislative and executive branches have leaned on unilateral power grabs in recent years to push their own agendas, as have corporate leaders. We are beginning to face the consequences of aborting our democratic values; in my view, that is the abortion we should be trying hardest to prevent.
Worldly Observations 