Project 3: When A Right Becomes A Privilege by Melanie Hernandez

Background Information:

melaniehernandez0330_ — 2023-11-15 17:43:36 UTC

Roe v. Wade is a 1973 lawsuit that famously led to the supreme court, making a ruling on abortion rights. Jane Roe was an unmarried pregnant woman who filed suit on behalf of herself and others to challenge Texas abortion laws. A Texas doctor joined Rose's lawsuit, arguing that he states abortion laws were too vague for doctors to follow. He had previously been arrested for violating the statue. At the time abortion was illegal in Texas, until it was done to save the mothers life. It was a crime to get an abortion, or to attempt one. In the Roe v. Wade case the Supreme Court decided to main things one the United States Constitution provides a fundamental right to privacy that protects a persons right to choose whether to have an abortion, and the second is, the abortion rate is not absolute. It must be balanced against the government interest in protecting health and prenatal life. Roe v. Wade changed the way states can regulate abortion and characterize abortion as something that was covered under constitutional rights of privacy. Before Roe V Wade was decided there were over 1 million illegal abortions performed in the US annually, and after Roe v Wade has been decided that number remains the same. The death rate occurring as a result of abortions dropped dramatically in the years following. On June 24, 2022 the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs versus Jackson women’s health organization, which was a case that involved a challenge to a Mississippi ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. The ruling overturned roe, which ended the federal constitutional right to abortion in the United States. The abortion ban has inflicted harm on Black, Latino, Indigenous and other minorities across this country. Women who are not able to get an abortion now, are more likely to be in poverty. Without the right to an abortion many women will now have to suffer and bear children against their will, and if they do have an illegal abortion, it will affect the women and the child and cause harm.

Key Terms And Definitions:

melaniehernandez0330_ — 2023-11-15 17:43:41 UTC

Abortion: The deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.
Roe V Wade: Established a woman's right to have an abortion without undue restrictive interference from the government. The Court held that a woman's right to decide for herself to bring or not bring a pregnancy to term is guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Supreme Court: The highest Federal court, possessing final appellate jurisdiction and exercising supervisory jurisdiction over the lower courts.
The Turnaway Study: The Turnaway Study is the first study to rigorously examine the effects of receiving versus being denied a wanted abortion on women and their children.
Overturn: When a judiciary rejects the result of a prior court proceeding and can change the legal decision.

How Roe V Wade Got Overturned:

melaniehernandez0330_ — 2023-11-15 18:14:43 UTC

The Supreme Court overturned Roe V Wade because of a decision in Dobbs V. Jackson Women's Health Organization. This organization was a landmark decision that addressed whether the Constitution protected the right to an abortion. Missisipis court upheld its abortion law in a 5-4 vote, found that there is no constitutional right to abortion, and overruled Roe V. Wade. Mississippi law banned all abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy. The court held that states can restrict abortion only past the point when the fetus is visible (which is found to be at 23 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.) The Supreme Court now had a 6-3 conservative majority. The legality is now left for states to decide.

Who and How this Affects Women In The U.S?

melaniehernandez0330_ — 2023-11-15 18:18:02 UTC

Fourteen states have banned abortion outright. At least 61 clinics, planned parenthood facilities, and doctor's offices have stopped offering abortions in the last year. Most states have passed more than 1,300 restrictions on abortions since it was made a constitutional right, and for people who are struggling, these restrictions are insurmountable. Getting an abortion post-Roe means traveling to a different state, taking time off from work, and having money for transportation. The cost of an in-clinic abortion is from $500 if it is in the first trimester. If the pregnancy is further along, it can be more than $1,000. These expenses are ineligible for federal funding, which means that abortions are inaccessible for many low-income women. The lack of abortion access interferes with the financial well-being of their children. Women who are denied abortion procedures are more likely to live below the federal poverty level. Women who seek abortions are disproportionately women of color who already are at a systemic disadvantage in society. Most economically privileged women will be able to get an abortion, and the least privileged will not. This exacerbates health, economic, and racial disparities. The women who are affected by this decision to overturn Roe are young women, women of color, and low-income women.

The Turnaway Study:

melaniehernandez0330_ — 2023-11-15 22:03:23 UTC

The Turnaway study was a longitudinal study that began in 2008 and was followed by more than 1,000 women who were seeking abortions. Diana Greene Foster, a UC San Francisco professor, led it. The study compared women who were denied abortions to see how their lives were affected over time. Women who were denied abortion went on to have higher debt, financial crises such as bankruptcies and evictions, and a subprime credit score. In Diana's study, women who had health issues were more likely to stay in a domestic violence relationship and raise children in an unstable home than women who received an abortion—two women in the Turnaway study who were denied died shortly after giving birth. The goal of the study was to provide data on the consequences of abortion on women's well-being. The main takeaway from this study is that receiving an abortion does not harm the health and well-being of women, but instead, being denied an abortion results in worse financial, health, and family outcomes.

Citations:

melaniehernandez0330_ — 2023-11-20 03:45:10 UTC

Parenthood, Planned. “Roe v. Wade Overturned: How the Supreme Court Let Politicians Outlaw Abortion.” Planned Parenthood Action Fund, www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/roe-v-wade. Accessed 12 Nov. 2023.

Why Was Roe v. Wade Overturned? - Findlaw, supreme.findlaw.com/supreme-court-insights/could-roe-v--wade-be-overturned-.html. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.

Jeltsen, Melissa. “When a Right Becomes a Privilege.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 2 June 2022, www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/05/roe-v-wade-abortion-access-poor-women/629858/.

Liptak, Adam. “In 6-to-3 Ruling, Supreme Court Ends Nearly 50 Years of Abortion Rights.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 June 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html.

Why did the Supreme Court End 50 Years of Abortion Rights?:

melaniehernandez0330_ — 2023-11-28 02:34:09 UTC

Former President Donald J. Trump vowed to name justices who would overrule Roe. All three of his appointees were in the majority of the ruling. The court overruled Roe V Wade as unconstitutional because of the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment states that a woman has a right to privacy, whether to be married or single, and whether to abort a child or not. The court found no support in the text of the 14th Amendment. The court had stated that the arguments were "exceptionally weak" and "damaging" and that they amounted to "an abuse of judicial authority." Millions of American women have lost a fundamental constitutional protection.