The development of reproductive rights was a major achievement for the Second Wave of feminism in the 20th century. For many years, women have been confined to following and submit to the traditional societal role, limiting their ability to enter the labour sector or have the autonomy to control their lives. The reproductive rights movement believed that the emancipation of women within the patriarchal society was planned parenthood. This refers to giving women the ability to plan and choose whether or not they want to have children. Having the right to have access to birth control and contraceptives meant that more women could join the labor sector. The 1973 landmark case Roe V. Wade also afforded women the right to abortion, which enhanced the activities of the birth control movement to give women more choices in dictating whether or not they wanted to have children. However, in June 2022, the court overturned the Roe V. Wade ruling during the ruling of the Dobbs V. Jackson’s Women Health Organization, where the Supreme Court held that the US constitution does not confer right to abortion. However, it fails to identify the people who will be most affected by the decision, include women of color and working women, and how banning abortion exposes women to unsafe abortions.
The overturning of the Roe V. Wade ruling by the Supreme Court earlier this year has become a topic of discussion for the past two months. Many women and feminist organizations have condemned the US Supreme Court’s ruling stating that denying women their right to an abortion is illegal. The overturning of the Roe V. Wade ruling occurred as part of the ruling in the Dobbs V. Jackson’s Women Health Organization case. The 2018 case inferred the constitutionality of the Gestational Age acts in Mississippi state law, which limited abortion operations within the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The case also aimed at overturning the Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling of 1992 that protected the right to abortion from being banned by states before fetal viability. The state of Mississippi’s legislator argued: “that nothing in the Constitution’s text, structure, history, or tradition supports a constitutional right to abortion” (Perry and Jiping 16). Thus, the attorney argued that since the right was absent within the constitution, the state should be able to dictate the state laws on abortion. The Supreme Court ruling has allowed states to create their abortion laws, which can be viewed as declaring the medical procedure illegal. For instance, in Texas, abortion is only legal to women under certain conditions, such as saving a life-threatening condition while pregnant as dictated by the abortion trigger law in the state. The law also criminalizes abortion, and providers of abortion services will be punished under civil and criminal law (Texas State Law Library). Therefore, the Supreme Court ruling has led to the development of state laws that outlaw abortion regardless of the stage of pregnancy.
The feminist theory embraces the idea of choice and empowering women to have the freedom to make choices that affect their lives, which is critically represented by the concept of reproductive justice. The feminist theory allows women to work towards solving the issues that affect them and their societal position (Ahmed). Reproductive justice embraces three critical frameworks in exploring the intersectionality of autonomy, labor and reproductive health. These three frameworks include the right to bear children, the right to raise children in a safer and healthier environment, right not to have children. The reproductive justice framework explores the idea of giving women the right to have a choice to become parents and an environment to raise children (Price). As such, by overturning Roe V. Wade, women are being robbed of their reproductive justice and right to a choice. It threatens the progress of feminist movements and ideals of feminism. The overturning of abortion rights means that the government chooses for women to have children and are forced into uninterrupted maternity (“Wages for Housework from the Government for All Women”). Overturning abortion rights affects how women develop their work-life balance since they will not have the choice to dictate when to have children or start families. Therefore, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe V. Wade‘s decision conflicts with reproductive justice and infringes upon women’s rights to make choices.
Apart from conflicting with the concept of reproductive justice, overturning Roe V. Wade has led to an ideological and ethical debate between the conservative and liberal groups within the country. Before the Supreme Court ruling was made, pro-choice and pro-life protests were held outside the court and in various major cities in the US. Conservative, churches and pro-life lobby groups hold that abortion should be illegal, while liberals and pro-choice lobby groups argue that it is the choice of a woman to give birth or have the baby. Religious groups and conservatives argue that life begins at conception, and to terminate the pregnancy regardless of the stage is taking life sacred before God (Greenhouse and Siegel). The groups opposed the idea of abortion before Roe V. Wade since it went against the morals of American society. Regardless, pro-choice feminists argue that abortion is the right of all women since they are entitled to have a right to privacy. According to Greenhouse and Siegel, feminist movements “tied abortion to arguments for changing women’s sexual, economic, and political roles” (54). The pro-choice groups condemn the Supreme Court ruling since it will create precedence for states to ban abortion or develop laws that will make abortion illegal and inaccessible to women. Thus, the ruling is expected to have some ripple effects in the future, detrimental to women and the progress of the feminist movement.
The consequences of the Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe V. Wade should be analyzed through the lenses of intersectionality and how it will affect women at different levels. First, women of color will be the most affected women after the ban on abortion rights. The rate of abortions in the US is drawn through racial lines. Women of color have had more abortions than white women in America. According to an article by KFF, “Approximately eight in ten abortions among White (81%) and Hispanic women (82%) and three-quarters of abortions among Black women (76%) occur by nine weeks of pregnancy” (Artiga et al.). In addition, about one in ten abortions occur between 10 to 13 weeks of pregnancy. African American, Hispanic and Native women, have less access to proper maternal healthcare services than white women. Income disparity limits their ability to have access to maternal coverage or insurance, and this affects their ability to afford medical services while they are pregnant. Women of color also have low access to contraceptives and other sexual health services compared to white women, as their rate of contraceptive use (61% for both African American and Hispanic women) is lower than that of white women at 69% (Artiga et al.). Thus, women of color will be the most affected group by the Supreme Court ruling since abortion allows women to overcome the socioeconomic challenges they face while pregnant.
Secondly, the effects of overturning Roe V. Wade can be inspected through the lenses of class stratification. The Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights will greatly affect women within the middle and lower classes compared to women in the upper class. Low-income women will face the challenge of enjoying their reproductive rights since they will be limited to nurturing their children in safer environments and providing better lives. In addition to this, it will have an adverse effect on working women in society. For starters, it will lead to reduced working hours for women since they will have to take time off during pregnancy and maternal leaves. According to an article by the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, “Abortion access increased women’s participation in the workforce overall, increasing the probability of a woman working 40 weeks or more per year by almost 2 percentage points (from 29 percent)” (3). The act of taking access to abortion threatens the position of women in the labor sector and their livelihood. Reduced time for working women while pregnant could affect their wages, especially for minimum wage earners. Low labor participation from women will also impact the income being earned as the wage disparity gap will continue to widen as fewer women will have the ability to take up employment opportunities as they revert to their reproduction labor roles. Thus, the Supreme Court ruling will affect women’s economic capabilities, further increasing class division.
Lastly, it will affect the ability of women to secure better healthcare services and safe abortions. Roe V. Wade enabled women to secure safe abortions at health facilities. However, overturning the ruling will increase unsafe abortions, especially in states like Texas, where abortion is illegal. The law only allows for abortion procedures to occur under special conditions such as rape and medical emergencies that threaten the mother’s life during pregnancy. Creating such conditions will limit the ability of women to terminate pregnancies during the early stages of the pregnancy, putting them at greater health risks later. Banning abortion limits access to safe maternal healthcare for women since it robs them of the ability to choose to have a child or not. The rate of accessing safer abortions is higher in countries that have legalized abortions than in countries that have outlawed medical procedure. Payne et al. opine, “The case fatality rate in the US is 0.7 deaths per 100 procedures; the rate in developing countries is over 300 times greater” (119). The great disparity in the fatality rate in abortion procedures between developing nations and the US (before the Supreme Court ruling) is the presence of abortion laws. The presence of abortion laws allows for women to have access to safer abortion procedures, and by repelling them, women are at risk of securing unsafe abortions leading to their deaths. The Supreme Court ruling puts women at greater health risks since the government will not provide safer abortions and health services, exposing them to seek unsafe abortions since healthcare personnel will not be allowed to conduct them.
Therefore, overturning Roe V. Wade will have a detrimental impact on women of color and working-class women and expose them to unsafe abortions. The Supreme Court ruling has failed to note the socioeconomic issues that women of color face, limiting their ability to afford proper health and maternal care or contraceptives. It also fails to ignore the impact of banning access to abortion procedures on working women and low income women since they will work for less time than men, resulting in low wages. The Supreme Court ruling was focused on appeasing the ideals of certain groups whilst failing to note how abortion has affected women’s lives.
Work Cited
“Wages for Housework from the Government for All Women.” New York Wages For Housework Committee Campaign Office. Nd.
Ahmad, Aalya. “Living a feminist life.” Contemporary Political Theory 18.2 (2019): 125-128.
Artiga, Samantha, et al. “What Are the Implications of the Overturning of Roe V. Wade for Racial Disparities?” KFF, 15 July 2022, www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/what-are-the-implications-of-the-overturning-of-roe-v-wade-for-racial-disparities/.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The Economic Effects of Abortion Access: A Review of the Evidence. Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2019. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep34475. Accessed 4 Sep. 2022.
Greenhouse, Linda, and Reva B. Siegel. “Before (and after) Roe v. Wade: New questions about backlash.” The Yale Law Journal (2011): 2028-2087.
Payne, Carolyn M., et al. “Why Women Are Dying from Unsafe Abortion: Narratives of Ghanaian Abortion Providers.” African Journal of Reproductive Health / La Revue Africaine de La Santé Reproductive, vol. 17, no. 2, 2013, pp. 118–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23485926. Accessed 4 Sep. 2022.
Perry, Sarah, and Thomas Jipping. “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization: An Opportunity to Correct a Grave Error.” Heritage Foundation Legal Memorandum 293 (2021).
Price, Kimala. “What Is Reproductive Justice?: How Women of Color Activists Are Redefining the Pro-Choice Paradigm.” Meridians, vol. 10, no. 2, 2010, pp. 42–65. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2979/meridians.2010.10.2.42. Accessed 4 Sep. 2022.
Texas State Law Library. “Texas State law library.” State Law Library, 2022, www.sll.texas.gov/spotlight/2022/07/texas-abortion-trigger-law-effective-august-25th-2022/.
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