It was never about just abortion rights.
It is about putting women in their place. According to the dogma put forth by the white male dominated Republican Party, women belong home, having babies, and taking orders from their men.
The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg said many times if a woman does not control her body, including her reproduction decisions, the woman is not free. This is true. It is a fundamental issue of privacy and freedom.
The U.S. Supreme Court is about to end constitutional abortion rights in America. Women will still be able to exercise reproductive rights in states that do not ban abortion.
Most women won’t be affected by the decision to come by the U.S. Supreme Court. Poor women will be most affected. They will find it difficult to travel to obtain an abortion, miles away from their homes.
Privacy
Yet, after Roe v. Wade is wiped off the map, the next target will be Griswold. Legal observers know it. Griswold v. Connecticut is a 1965 case that made the Roe decision possible.
Griswold, while a case about a right to contraception, also made clear that the right to privacy is constitutitional and is found in the Bill of Rights and several constitutional amendments. The Court likened this right as within a “zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. Griswold is also about a woman’s control over her body, her freedom, and liberty.
Roe and Griswold are the same in principle. One concerns ending a pregnancy and the other concerns preventing a pregnancy. Most of all, they extend women freedom and privacy constitutionally.
Women are free and have freedom over their bodies most importantly. Women make these decisions outside of state intrusion. The coming decision from the U.S. Supreme Court denigrates that fundamental human concept and right. It dehumanizes women.
Here’s the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the subject of women’s freedom:
The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. … When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.
The Future
It has been suggested more than once by many conservative judges that it is not the job of the courts to legislate abortion rights. If the people want abortion rights, lawmakers can pass such laws.
We all know that will never happen.
Many states are under Republican control; they will never extend abortion rights to women legislatively.
Democrats, when they had control of Congress in 2009, failed to secure the rights during a window of opportunity under Obama. They dropped the ball; the opportunity has sailed. There will be no federal law.
The reproductive rights of women remain where the two controlling parties have always preferred them to be: in the political arena where points can be scored. Both parties can say we are fighting for your rights and yet nothing really gets done.
Are we for the total freedom on American women to control their bodies or not? That is the only question now. Everyone running for office needs to answer that.
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Previously Published on Medium
Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash