Thoughts on SCOTUS Overturning Roe V. Wade

by jmccoy3 on May 6, 2022


Opinion


Thoughts on SCOTUS Overturning Roe v Wade 

Maggie Hanson ’25 

 

I love my country. Both of my grandpas were in the United States military, Fourth of July is my favorite holiday, and I believe this country is beautiful. I have always been proud to be an American.

 

That was until this week. On Monday, May 2, the U.S. Supreme Court labeled me as a second-class citizen, supposedly from the confirmed leak from Justice Alito’s draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade

 

As a woman, my bodily autonomy is being challenged by the possible Supreme Court decision. Instead, five unelected officials will choose to outlaw abortion. Five people made a choice for 166.6 million women, according to the most recent U.S. Census. 

 

In May 2021, Pew Research Center’s Hannah Hartig reported that 59 percent of Americans believed “abortion should be legal in all or most cases.” That is, almost six out of 10 Americans are against overturning Roe v. Wade. So, why did five people get to?

 

As Americans, we are aware that the justice system fails us. But to marginalize the majority of your population and strip away a right to make a choice about their own body is especially damaging. 

 

Not to mention, this ruling would not stop abortions but merely safe abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion occurs in 34 out of 1,000 women in countries with the least restrictive abortion laws, and 37 out of 1,000 women in countries with the most restrictive abortion laws. Legalized abortions allow for regulated healthcare and better assurance that the woman is unharmed. If one is truly pro-life, wouldn’t they want that to protect the citizens of their country? One would think. 

 

In 1965, unsafe and illegal abortions accounted for 17 percent of reported pregnancy-related deaths, according to Rachel Gold and Megan Donovan from Scientific America. They explain how there may have been more than the 200 deaths because some may have not been accounted under the illegal abortion as the cause. In addition, low-income women were more likely to be sent to the hospital than affluent women. Illegalizing abortion would become another way the country divides itself. Depending on your zip code and income, an unwanted pregnancy could mean vastly different things. A woman’s economic status could be the deciding factor of safe abortion or unsafe abortion. 

 

Again, it is 2022; why are we still discriminating and “playing God” by choosing who gets the right to their body based on whether they can afford it or not?