Reflections on the SCOTUS Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Friday the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) officially overturned Roe v. Wade in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. The decision was not a complete shock, seeing that a draft opinion of the decision was leaked back in early May. Now that the decision has been issued, large ramifications will result throughout the country. In particular, seeing that 13 states have trigger laws that go into effect after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, our legal landscape around the issue and women's health, in general, are about to get a lot more tricky.

Before I go any further, I preface this piece by noting that I am not a woman and have had a vasectomy, so my interest in the discussion is primarily as an observer. I've already been corrected on some aspects of this discussion on social media and welcome continued insight from anyone who might have it. I just thought my background as a lawyer and life experiences have given me a perspective that might be worth sharing. That being said, here are my reflections on the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The Anti-Abortion Movement Has Mostly Been About Power, Not the Unborn

For the vast majority of the anti-abortion movement, the focus has been more on power for certain groups than concern for the unborn. The first anti-abortion movement was a power move by physicians in the mid-nineteenth century who sought to regulate the practice of abortion to drive out the competition from lay healers. They were supported by nativists who feared declining birth rates among white, American-born, Protestant women. Their efforts caused abortion to go from a widespread stigma-free practice to one that was prohibited at all stages unless approved by a physician to preserve the life of the mother. Ironically, after cornering the market on women's health it was also physicians who helped advocate for safe abortions by the mid-twentieth century, due to an epidemic of women who died as a result of abortions from the illegal marketplace.

The current pro-life efforts mainly began with Catholics as the movement to end abortion began in the 1960s. The Catholic church had intermittently declared abortion murder for centuries, supported life from conception to death, and was against both abortion and the death penalty (which at least shows some consistency). In the late 70s and early 80s, evangelical Christians joined the movement, many of who like the nativists of the century before were worried about the large influx of immigrants. However, this time instead of the immigrants being Catholic immigrants from Europe threatening a Protestant majority, the immigrants were from Latin America and Asia and posed a threat to a white majority. By the 80s and 90s, white nationalist groups like the KKK had also joined the anti-abortion movement and claimed that Jews were behind abortion and responsible for the "murder" of millions of white babies. This claim of people in power trying to end abortion to keep whites from losing their numerical advantage can be found in a variety of places but is articulated in a minute and a half by Jane Elliott when she recaps the premise of the book Birth Dearth, written by Ben Wattenberg, explaining that ending abortion would end the "birth dearth" among white people in the United States as compared to minority groups.

The Republican Party became the political vehicle for the anti-abortion movement not too long after the Roe decision and in 1976 adopted an anti-abortion position as a part of their platform. Since then the leaders of the anti-abortion movement required that the Republican leaders remain uniform on the issue and create actions that opposed abortions at every level. Making abortion the single most important issue that their leaders all advocate for has led them to use it to reform the party. They also did things like reform campaign finance laws, which allowed them to outspend the opposing party and thus retain a disproportionate amount of power in the political arena.

Using Conception as the Starting Point is Problematic

Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned many states are looking to go to the practices before Roe and ban any form of abortion from the time of conception, other than to protect the life of the mother. Oklahoma did so just last month.

Treating conception as the starting point is problematic for multiple reasons. One is that most people have no idea when they actually conceive. My wife has been pregnant multiple times and there was never a magical sign at the moment conception took place. Usually, we noticed that she was late on her menstrual cycle and had to buy a pregnancy test to determine whether she was pregnant or not. This could be problematic for many people, including anyone interested in purchasing things like Plan B, which even though is supposed to remain legal, might worry some who might be unfamiliar with the new laws and seek to avoid it altogether to be safe from potential prosecution.

Another issue is the idea that from the moment of conception the fertilized egg is an "unborn child." If that's really the case, assisted reproduction facilities have thousands of "unborn children" frozen in their labs. I personally know people who have gone to such facilities and had their embryos frozen for more than 10 years. Without Roe, they now find themselves in a legal bind, as now if they decide to terminate the embryos that have been frozen for more than a decade, they could be seen as taking the lives of "unborn children." Seeing that you can freeze these "unborn children" for decades and thaw them out at any time with no issues, I'd say that the term "unborn child" at this phase is a bit of a stretch. Stretch or not, if those who are pushing for conception to be the starting point get their way, many people will find themselves having to choose between being prosecuted for their choice to terminate their embryos or leaving them frozen perpetually.

Women Will Suffer and Likely Die

In 2009, my wife and I went through a miscarriage at around 10 weeks into her pregnancy. It was a devastating blow and we were heartbroken for weeks. Thankfully though, we weren't denied access to the drug that helped my wife clear her womb to keep from it becoming infected or questioned for possible criminal prosecution, which are now possible realities, especially in states like Texas where we live.

Texas has already given us a preview of a world without Roe, as women have been denied access to treatment for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and other pregnancy complications, due to its abortion ban after 6 weeks. Now that Roe is overturned, Texas will ban all abortions, unless it endangers the life of the mother. Ironically, by banning all abortions, and not properly treating life-threatening situations like complicated miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, more mothers' lives will be in jeopardy. Even more with many doctors who are understandably hesitant to treat women in such situations, more women are likely to be in jeopardy of not being treated in time to save them from serious injury or death from complications.

Even more, women losing the right to any expectation of privacy of their own bodies will likely cause many women to become cautious of what they share with others, including their own doctors, about their health. Such a lack of communication will undoubtedly lead to later diagnoses of things that ail them, some of which could be life-threatening, which would again cause more women to die unnecessarily.

Conclusion

In short, the SCOTUS deciding to overturn Roe is a sad day for this country and will likely cause unnecessary injury, including possible death, to women similar to ways they were before Roe became law. This push to end abortion has mainly come from narrow interest groups, who have been more concerned about power than the "unborn" they claim to be advocating for. If we truly care about preserving life, we should be more concerned about the lives of the women who may now find themselves in harm's way due to removing their expectation of privacy of their bodies more than embryos that can be frozen into perpetuity.