US Supreme Court Strikes A Blow Against Women’s Rights

 

A nine-judge bench of the United States Supreme Court has ruled 6-3 in Dobbs v. Jackson that the right to abortion is not a constitutionally protected right. By overturning the ruling in Roe v Wade which had enshrined the right to abortion for nearly five decades in the United States, the Supreme Court gave back to individual states the freedom to legislate on abortion. It is expected that a number of states, especially those with Republican legislatures, will put in place or reinstate laws that either make abortion illegal or make the process of getting an abortion very difficult. This process had already begun in the form of trigger laws designed to be effective if Roe V. Wade is overturned.

I am outraged by the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson. In a country where people have so much freedom to buy firearms, why don’t women have the right to have an abortion? Until the foetus is delivered, it is not a separate being and does not have rights that are distinct from the woman. Right now, I am grateful I live in India, underdeveloped in many respects in comparison to the USA, but where women can have abortions easily.

Recently I read an account of a thirty-eight year old American tourist on holiday in Malta, Andrea Prudente, who was 16 weeks pregnant, when she started to miscarry and had to be admitted to hospital with severe bleeding. Prudente requested an abortion when told that her pregnancy was no longer viable. However, the request was refused since Malta is the only EU state that does not allow abortion under any circumstances. Thankfully for Andrea Prudente, her insurance policy allowed her to take an air ambulance out of Malta and fly to Spain.

Then there’s the case of Savita Halappanavar, an Indian doctor working in Ireland who was denied an abortion though she desperately needed one. Dr. Halappanavar died of speticemia tragically, though her death served to change the laws in Ireland, where abortion has now been legalised.

Am I digressing? I don’t just want the right to abort to apply when there is a medical emergency. I want every woman to have the right to abort. Having full autonomy over one’s own body is a very fundamental right, one that should be protected by the constitution. How would the world react if a law forced any human being to donate his or her blood or organs even if doing so could save lives? The new ruling effectively makes it so that women have very little autonomy over their uteruses. 

In one of the most advanced countries of the world, women’s rights has taken a big leap backwards. If the world’s most powerful democracy cannot constitutionally guarantee women autonomy over their bodies, what can women in underdeveloped countries expect?

Is the fight over abortion really about protecting the unborn child? If America really wanted to take care of all American lives, wouldn’t it have had universal healthcare, free childcare and gun control laws?