WASHINGTON, DC- Half a century after the legalization of abortion in the United States, the country celebrates that anniversary with the ruling that authorized it revoked and an open battle between those who fight for the complete abolition of this practice and those who defend the right of woman to decide on her body.
The protests carried out these days by supporters and detractors crystallize the citizen division around a decision that on January 22, 1973, when the Supreme Court positioned itself in favor of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, marked a before and after in history US.
The case had been brought on behalf of Jane Roe, the legal pseudonym of Norma McCorvey, who was fighting then-Dallas prosecutor Henry Wade over a Texas state law that allowed abortions only to save the woman’s life. At that time, 30 of the country’s 50 states had similar laws.
McCorvey was a single mother pregnant for the third time, but was unable to have the desired abortion. Although she won the case, by the time the Supreme Court pronounced her sentence the baby, a girl, had already been born and had been given up for adoption.
This 50th anniversary is symbolic for both sides. Critics of abortion hail the June court ruling as a first step, and supporters see it as evidence that you can’t let your guard down.
The anti-abortion organization March for Life estimates that since that first ruling “some 62 million lives have been lost due to legal abortion,” and estimates that the number of voluntary terminations of pregnancy will drop from the current 900,000 per year, according to its data, to about 200,000 in this new stage “post Roe”.
His goal is to not only change laws at the federal and state levels, especially now that Republicans have taken control of the House, but also “to change the culture so that ultimately abortion is unthinkable.”
THE BATTLE OF THE DETRACTORS, THEREFORE, HAS NOT ENDED
Since last June, 18 states have banned abortion or have severely restricted it, and in 13 of them access to this service is practically impossible, although there are exceptions. But there are 50 states in the country. “People often forget that it’s not just about the pregnant woman, but also about the baby in her womb,” Jennifer Milbourn, coordinator of the Abortion Survivors network, told EFE.
Her mother, an alcoholic, tried to abort her 44 years ago, but when she went to the clinic it was too late and after doctors failed to aspirate the fetus they sent the woman home. When abortion was not legal in the United States, undergoing one carried great legal and health risks, recalls EFE Carrie Flaxman, senior director of law and public policy litigation at Planned Parenthood, the largest network of reproductive service clinics in the US.
“It subjected people to surveillance, investigation, arrest, prosecution and other types of criminal sanctions. This destroyed families, careers and lives. Roe decriminalized abortion by recognizing that it is a right protected by the 14th amendment of the Constitution, “he explains to EFE. Half a century later, the decision of the highest judicial forum, with a conservative majority, annulled that progress.
“As a result, one in three women of reproductive age in the United States – and more trans and non-binary people – no longer have access to abortion in their state,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, stressed to EFE. .
Some women are forced to travel hundreds or thousands of miles outside their home state for medical care if they can afford it, she adds, and others miscarry outside the health system or are forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
“We must continue to work to adequately fund and defend sexual and reproductive health programs. The Supreme Court’s decision means that the path to restore and protect the right to abortion lies through the states, so the fights to protect and restore the access will be released at that level,” concludes the Planned Parenthood leader.
