Pro: Roe v. Wade and Abortion

At its heart, abortion is about women who have chosen not to carry their pregnancies to term and those who wanted a child but were forced to terminate the pregnancy for medical reasons. They are the most important thing in the story of abortion: not politics, not religion, and not whether you think it’s murder. 

On January 22, 1973, Norma McCorvey and the United States Supreme Court granted Americans the abortion rights they have today. She challenged the Texas abortion law of the era; you could only have an abortion if you had been raped. McCorvey, who presented herself to the press as Jane Roe, convinced the Supreme Court to grant the right to a safe and legal abortion in the landmark case Roe v. Wade. Now this decision has come into question, especially with the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh into the Supreme Court. However, Roe v. Wade has made women’s lives safer and has expanded rights which they should have always had. 

In 1965, illegal, self-induced abortions made up one-sixth of pregnancy related deaths. Clinics were often closed quickly by authorities and women would attempt to conduct their own abortions. At the time, 8 in 10 low income women in New York who had abortions conducted them themselves. A few years later, the results of Roe v. Wade regulated and legalized abortions, making them much safer and much more available for women of all social classes. Death from abortion decreased fivefold and it is now one of the safest medical procedures available. 

In 2007, the Supreme Court upheld a law that banned certain abortion procedures in the second trimester of pregnancy. Now, as of the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, regulations and restrictions on abortions are legal, as long as they don’t cause “undue burden” on women. One of the procedures that the 2007 laws prohibit is a partial birth abortion, in which a fetus that is dead or has already been killed is removed from the mother. This procedure is done mid to late-second trimester and is one of the cheapest, safest abortion procedures. Some may say that, by this point, the fetus is a person and, thus, the procedure is murder. Many women who have this procedure would agree. A woman who doesn’t want a child wouldn’t endure a pregnancy for 20 weeks. Partial birth abortion is used when a child will not be able to life a fulfilling life outside the womb. It’s not fair to shame these would-be-mothers for killing a child they would have loved and cherished.  

Recently, most of the concern about abortion is whether or not Roe v. Wade will be overturned as Brett Kavanaugh takes his seat as a Supreme Court justice. Pro-choice activists fear that Kavanaugh will overturn the landmark case. This fear has caused such activists to initiate world-wide protests. Women have been marching dressed in the red and white robes described in Margaret Atwood’s book The Handmaid’s Tale and the Hulu original show by the same title. These women try to bring to light the unfair female health policies in their countries by comparing their world to that of the thought-provoking fiction.  

While these protests and others like it do occur in the United States, the majority of citizens support Roe v. Wade. 72% of the public are opposed to overturning the ruling, according to Planned Parenthood. The belief is also bipartisan, with 53% of Republicans, 76% of Independents and 86% of Democrats in support of Roe v. Wade. It seems religion doesn’t overcome women’s right to proper care with six out of ten Catholics in support of the case.  

The choice to get an abortion is a personal matter. Politicians should not be allowed to meddle in this decision-making process by enacting laws that could overturn Roe v. Wade. That case was fundamental to ensuring women get the care they deserve. Would anyone prefer to return to a time where women died trying to keep a child that would be unloved from suffering? I sincerely hope not. For the sake of women’s rights, Roe v. Wade must remain.