The future of abortion, always a controversial issue, was made in the Supreme Court on December 1. Arguments are scheduled to challenge Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the decisions. Important court decisions over the past half century guarantee a woman the national right to an abortion.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
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J. Scott Applewhite / AP
The future of abortion, always a controversial issue, was made in the Supreme Court on December 1. Arguments are scheduled to challenge Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the decisions. Important court decisions over the past half century guarantee a woman the national right to an abortion.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
For nearly half a century, abortion has been a constitutional right in the United States. But this week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a Mississippi case that directly challenged Roe v. Wade and subsequent decisions.
Those rulings consistently state that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy during the first two trimesters of pregnancy when the fetus cannot survive outside the uterus. But with abortion in doubt right now, it’s worth looking back at its history.
Abortion didn’t become illegal in most states until the mid-1800s. But by the 1960s, abortion, like childbirth, had become a safe procedure when performed by a doctor and by the woman. Women have entered the workforce in greater numbers than ever before.
However, illegitimate pregnancies are considered scandalous and women are increasingly seeking abortions, even though they are illegal. Furthermore, frequent pregnancies mean that women’s education is limited, as well as their chances of getting good jobs. Because of these phenomena, illegal abortion started to skyrocket and became a public health problem. Estimates per year range from 200,000 to over a million, a wide range, precisely because illegal proceedings are often undocumented.
At that time, young women could see the danger to themselves. Anyone who lived in a university dormitory back then, likely saw one or more women bleeding out of the dorms due to illegal abortions.
George Frampton worked as Justice Harry Blackmun’s secretary the year his boss was the author of Roe v. Wade, and he remembers that until Roe “those abortions have to be done in secret if you have a sympathetic doctor” and are “rich enough”. But most abortions are illegal and mostly take place “in motel rooms by abortion”, using “rude equipment” and “unsanitary”.
In the early 1960s, Frampton notes, thousands of women in major cities went to the hospital, bleeding and often injured.
One woman recalls “the excruciating pain [illegal] “in an interview with NPR, describe it as” is the equivalent of having a hot wax inserted into your uterus and scrape off the wall. “She remembered that the waiter had to” hold her down to the table. “
As a result, Frampton says, in the mid-1960s, a reform movement began, aimed at eliminating abortion and treating it like other medical procedures. Driving the reform movement were doctors, who were concerned about the effects of illegal abortion on women’s health. Before long, the American Law Institute – a respected group of lawyers, judges, and academics – announced a model abortion-reform bill adopted by major medical groups, including the American Medical Association. United States support.
Many states then began easing abortion restrictions. Four states have legalized abortion, and dozens have passed some form of model law, authorizing abortion in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, and to save life or health. mother’s health.
In the early 1970s, when nearly half of the states passed reform legislation, there was a small backlash. However, as Frampton observes, “It’s not a big political or ideological issue.”
In fact, the 1973 judges were mostly established conservatives. The six are Republican appointees, including the court’s only Catholic. And five were generally conservative, as defined at the time, of which four were appointed by President Nixon. In the end, the court voted 7 to 2 that abortion is a private matter decided by a woman during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
That framework has remained in place ever since, with courts continually upholding that standard. In 1992, it reiterated the framework, although it said that countries could enact some restrictive restrictions – for example, a 24-hour waiting period – as long as the restriction was not imposed. undue burden” on women’s rights. to have an abortion.
Frampton says the court established the viability framework because of the medical consensus that a fetus cannot survive outside of the womb until the last trimester. He explained that “the judges thought this would abolish the constitutional issue of abortion forever.”
Although many people thought that the viability of the fetus could change significantly, that did not happen. But in the years that followed, backlash against the court’s abortion decision grew louder, until the Republican Party, which had previously supported Roe, formally abandoned it in 1984.
Looking at the politicization of the Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process in recent years, one can’t help but wonder if Roe played some role in that polarization. What does Frampton think?
“I’m afraid,” he admitted, “that analysis is absolutely correct. I think they [the justices] considered it a very important landmark constitutional decision but had no idea that it would become so politicized and become a subject of such turmoil. “
Why is abortion such a controversial issue in the United States and not in so many other countries where abortion is legal today? Florida State University law professor Mary Ziegler, author of Abortion and the Law in America, pointed out that in many countries the question of abortion has been resolved through democratic means – in some countries by national referendum, in others by parliamentary vote and in some countries, by the courts. However, in most of those countries, abortions, with some exceptions, must be performed earlier, before 12, 15 or 18 weeks.
But – and it’s a big but – in most of those countries, unlike in the US, national health insurance guarantees easy access to abortion.
Finally, Ziegler commented, “There are a lot of people in the United States who have a stake in our polarized politics… It’s a way to raise money. It’s a way to attract people to the sites. survey.”
And impressively, she added, our politics are less like what most people say they want. Opinion polls consistently show that a majority of Americans support the right to abortion in all or most of the cases. A poll conducted last May by the Pew Research Center found that 6 out of 10 Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. And a Washington Post-ABC poll conducted last month found that Americans by a margin of about 2 to 1 think the Supreme Court should uphold its landmark decision.
But an NPR poll conducted in 2019 revealed mixed – and even conflicting – opinions about abortion. The poll found that 77% of Americans support Roe. But that number dropped to 34% in the second trimester. Other polls have significantly higher support for second-trimester abortions. A Reuters poll pegged the number at 47% in 2021. And an AP poll found that 49% of respondents support legal abortion for anyone who wants an abortion “for any reason whatsoever.” why”, while 50% believe it shouldn’t be. And 86% said they would support abortion at any time during pregnancy to protect the life or health of the woman.
All of this seems to suggest that there is strong support for the right to abortion before pregnancy, but less support for later pregnancies, and overwhelming support for abortion at any rate. when to protect the life, or importantly, the health of the mother. However, that’s not the place to debate abortion in the roughly 25 states that have enacted very strict anti-abortion laws, including outright bans, in the hope that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe.
