It was just a year ago. The Supreme Court of the United States revoked Roe vs. to wade constitutionally guarantee the right to abortion. This sadly historic decision then heralded a monumental step backwards for the country, and gave each state the possibility of repealing this fundamental right on its own territory. A score of conservative states therefore jumped at the chance to outlaw abortion immediately. And the fall was far from stopping there.
Closed clinics, the health of patients at risk, ideological and medical warfare: every day, the stories that punctuate the news illustrate a little more the fragility of this fundamental right in the United States… and elsewhere.
Cascade bans
On 24 June the Supreme Court therefore intervened. Doubt has been hovering for months, with conservative ideology gaining ground as women’s rights lose ground. In the wake of this decision, a dozen states that suddenly have the right to dispose of their inhabitants’ bodies choose simply to deny them access to abortion.
At D+1, the list is already too long: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin no longer even recognize the rape and incest exception. as reported by the New York Times.
Other states, like Georgia or Arizona, are following suit, lowering the time limit for getting an abortion, sometimes as low as 6 weeks (while some people don’t even know they’re still pregnant at this time!).
In Indiana, Wyoming, Ohio and Montana uncertainty still prevails today, while laws aimed at limiting access to abortion are currently blocked in court.
Today, abortion remains legal in only 27 states: Alaska, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington State.
Some of them, very fortunately, have even strengthened their legal arsenal to protect this right on their territory. This is the case, for example, of Colorado, which has included it in its constitution.
THE abortions juridical in free fall
But nothing helps. On October 28, 2022, the American organization Society of Family Planning publishes its report “ Let’s count and reveals the dramatic decline in the number of legal abortions in the United States since the repeal of Roe v. Wading. The drop therefore totals 10,670 nationwide, a drop of about 6 percent between April and August 2022. At the time, of the 13 states that then severely restricted or banned abortions, In just two months, 22,530 fewer abortions were performed.
In mid-June 2023, new data released by the organization confirms the decline: the average number of abortions across the country between July 2022 and March 2023 is 79,031, or 3.3% less than in April and May 2022, when there were 81,730 abortions per month. It should be noted that 42 abortion institutions went out of business in 2022, up from 20 in 2021, according to a report released by the Abortion Care Network (ACN) in December. These facilities perform 55% of abortions in the United States.
Many American women are therefore forced to travel far to have a safe abortion, when they have the economic means. Others risk their lives and are too often deprived of their rights even if the pregnancy poses a certain risk to their health.
The abortion pill, at the center of the battle against abortion
The legal battle is also winning in the pharmaceutical field. In early April, a conservative Texan judge attempted to suspend the marketing of mifepristone, the abortion pill that now allows 54% of abortions in the United States. The reason ? Against all medical consensus, the latter believes that it would pose a potential danger to patients’ health and that its approval process would have been botched for political purposes when it was released in the 2000s.
Seizure, a New Orleans appeals court subsequently chose to keep the drug, but to significantly reduce access, subjecting its obtaining to a preventive and mandatory medical consultation, and reducing the legal period of access to 7 weeks against the 10 previous. Biden’s government appeals and in the end the Supreme Court decides to grant him a truce.
This verdict therefore offers a welcome respite in the fight for abortion access. But it cannot constitute a victory, as Family Planning reminds us for whom it is ” Good news “ must not make us lose sight of the fact that “theaccess to mifepristone should never have been threatened in the first place”.
The fight continues unabated. The proof Saturday, June 24, 2023: for the anniversary date, thousands of Americans took to the streets of the country to defend their rights and forcefully reaffirm their rejection of these unjust laws.
A year later, American women’s rights are still under threat. A situation that should encourage us to be more vigilant across the Atlantic.
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Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
