The United States Supreme Court released a decision on Friday that overturned the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade as well as the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In layman’s terms, this means that abortion is no longer lawful nationwide; instead, abortion legality will be determined at the state level.
There are many misconceptions about what this verdict signifies and what will happen next. Here are some replies to frequent myths surrounding the Roe v. Wade decision:
Myth 1: Abortion is now illegal in the United States.
In many parts of the nation, abortion is still legal despite being considered a “grave evil” by the Catholic Church. Since Roe v. Wade has been overturned, state laws will now control abortion. For years, some states have enacted legislation that is pro-life, while others have enacted legislation that is pro-choice.
Abortion rights are expressly protected by state law in states including Hawaii, Colorado, Nevada, New York, and Illinois. There will still be abortions there, and many of those states have positioned themselves as destinations for women going from states with stricter restrictions to get abortions.
Having said that, there are hundreds of state abortion laws that were either in legal limbo or knocked down outright prior to the court’s June 24 verdict for being inconsistent with Roe and so unlawful.
Those laws will now be able to take effect. They include a complete ban on abortion in the following states: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.
The legal environment at the state level is varied and complex, since a range of restrictions have been passed in the more pro-life states. Nebraska, for example, prohibits a type of abortion known as dilation and evacuation (D&E), which is commonly performed in the second trimester of pregnancy and ends in the dismemberment of an unborn child. Other states, such as Arizona, have limits, such as a ban on abortions performed exclusively for the purpose of diagnosing a child with Down syndrome.
Abortion laws that have been in place for at least 100 years in a few states, including Michigan, have never been repealed. Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) of Michigan has frequently called for the repeal of the state’s ban, which a judge just ordered be reinstated.
Some state legislatures may rush to approve abortion-control legislation in the coming days, weeks, or months.
Myth 2: Women will be harmed by this decision.
Almost all states with “trigger” abortion laws provide an exception for medical emergency, and the person punished under the law is the person conducting the abortion, not the woman requesting one.
Furthermore, at least one professional observer believes that examples of women being arrested for seeking abortions are quite improbable.
“There is no documented case in America of a woman being prosecuted for seeking an abortion since 1922. There has been only one case of a woman being convicted for unlawful self-management of abortion, and that was vacated on appeal,” legal scholar O. Carter Snead wrote recently in the Economist.
“All modern abortion laws immunize the woman seeking abortion from liability.”
More generally, the Turnaway Study is a frequently cited study that, according to pro-abortion advocates, shows that the majority of women do not regret having abortions and that women who were denied abortions at particular points in their lives experienced worse mental health and economic outcomes than those who were not.
The research design and apparent conflicts of interest of the study have now been widely refuted. The pro-life movement has attracted a lot of women who regret having abortions.
Myth 3: Women could now be jailed after having miscarriages.
One in every five pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Every woman will react and process her loss differently, but it goes without saying that such a profoundly personal and emotional event should be treated with compassion and loving care rather than criminal proceedings.
For many women, this is a very sensitive and frightening subject. Some pro-choice campaigners have pointed to nations such as El Salvador, where abortion is completely prohibited and women have been jailed and interrogated following miscarriages, as examples of what could happen in the United States.
However, cases in which a mother could go to jail for a miscarriage in the US are very uncommon and frequently involve women who used dangerous and illegal medications while pregnant. A lady from Oklahoma who lost her unborn child at 17 weeks and was sentenced to four years in jail last October. In that case, the pregnant 21-year-old mother admitted to using methamphetamines, and the unborn child’s body contained traces of the drug.
According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, there are laws in over two dozen states that classify drug use during pregnancy as child abuse under civil child welfare statutes.
But, “There is also no serious likelihood of the incidental criminalization of contraception, [In-Vitro Fertilization] and management of ectopic pregnancy or miscarriages,” Snead, the legal scholar, wrote.
Myth 4: A majority of women will live in states with no surgical abortion.
Because several of the nation’s most populous states, like California, New York, and Illinois, have attempted to codify abortion into their laws, the majority of women will undoubtedly live in places where surgical abortion is still legal.
Despite their geographical size, many of the most pro-life states in the country have very tiny populations.
Nonetheless, large states like Texas and Florida have shifted toward more pro-life policies in recent years.
Myth 5: Treatment for ectopic pregnancy is considered an abortion, and thus many women will likely die from lack of treatment in states where abortion is illegal.
Ectopic pregnancies happen when an embryo implants outside the uterus, most commonly in the fallopian tube. Though still uncommon, the most current CDC data reveal that the rate of ectopic pregnancies increased to roughly 1.4 percent in 2013, and may now be as high as 2 percent.
Once implanted, the embryo’s development is likely to rupture the fallopian tube, killing both mother and child. And whether or not medication is administered, the embryo is exceedingly unlikely to survive.
To handle ectopic pregnancies, three typical medical techniques are used, two of which are surgical and one of which is drug-based. The embryo dies in all of the procedures.
A procedure to save a woman’s life that unintentionally results in the death of an unborn baby is ethically acceptable from a Catholic perspective, but direct abortion, the purposeful killing of an unborn child, is never permitted.
However, medical specialists have emphasized that practically every state abortion legislation or ban includes an express exception for ectopic pregnancy treatment — which, once again, is not considered the same as abortion.
True, several recent state legislation initiatives that have gotten a lot of public attention have included ambiguous references to ectopic pregnancy that have worried some medical professionals.
State legislators, on the other hand, have taken steps to address this issue and ensure that ectopic pregnancy therapies are permitted and accessible.
A Louisiana bill under discussion, for example, would define abortion as homicide and did not initially include express protection for ectopic pregnancy treatment.
The pro-life Democrat Katrina Jackson, who introduced the related Louisiana bill, makes it clear that ectopic pregnancy therapies are not prohibited under Louisiana’s abortion ban.
Myth 6: Women in states where surgical abortions are banned will be unable to get abortions, unless they travel.
Again, the fact is that abortion will continue to be available to many women who choose it. One explanation for this is the widespread availability of the “abortion pill,” often known as pharmaceutical abortion. The United States According to the most recent Abortion Surveillance data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “early medical abortions” accounted for 42.3 percent of abortions in 2019.
The two-pill regimen has been fully approved by the United States. The FDA, which permitted doctors to prescribe the medications online and send the tablets in late 2021, allowing women to undergo early abortions — up to ten weeks of gestation — without leaving their homes.
At least 19 states require a clinician to be present when the tablets are administered. However, pro-life organizations’ data shows that medical abortions are more likely to result in emergency room visits than surgical abortions, and that medical abortion increases the risk of further abortions.
To further complicate matters, telehealth appointments might not be sufficient to identify when a woman seeking a medication abortion is actually experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. This is because taking an abortion pill can result in a life-threatening emergency for women who have an ectopic pregnancy.
Myth 7: Now that Roe v. Wade is overturned, it’s a done deal. States will always be able to restrict abortion from now on.
This is now the case, but President Joe Biden’s administration has attempted to push legislation codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law, which, if successful, would overrule state-level pro-life laws. However, these efforts have so far been unsuccessful.
However, just because past attempts to pass similar legislation have fallen short does not indicate that the federal government won’t try again in the future.
However, there is a potential that a federal law aiming to codify abortion rights will be overturned by the Supreme Court in light of the Dobbs decision.
The work of pro-life people continues.