On Monday, a Supreme Court document was leaked and concluded what we already knew was coming: Roe v. Wade will be overturned in the United States. For now abortion is federally legal, but this is expected to change in June. This decision will have a ripple effect through many sectors, including public health.
If the arguments actually had much of anything to do with infant well-being, perhaps we’d see more legislation stating, “From the moment of conception the biological father will be responsible for appropriate child support to ensure the safety and well being of the child until that child reaches the age of 18 or 22 in special circumstances.” Fat chance.
Thank you for this great analysis! One aspect I haven't seen information about is the projected impact on the number of children who will end up in the foster care system due to abuse or neglect. I predict the number of kids in foster care will increase significantly in the states that prohibit abortion, and it won’t just be the unwanted children who end up in the system, but also the siblings of these childen. Is anyone tracking this?
Thank you for this data-rich illustration of why anti-abortion laws do not help anyone. As someone who has been pregnant twice, I cannot imagine going through that against my will. No one should have to be pregnant unless they really want to.
Thank you for these important facts and links to those articles. We need to keep reminding people that this is a public health issue. As President of the Board of the Trust Women Foundation, we operate two clinics in those abortion deserts you describe - Kansas and Oklahoma. We are on the front lines of trying to protect women's health. We need more people in these areas to step up and fight back, especially at the ballot box. In Kansas, the state constitution currently protects abortion rights but Republicans have put a measure on the Aug. 2 primary ballot (where voter turnout is lowest) to strip away those rights. Please spread the word and support the effort to defeat this measure - this will be the first test of the strength of the support for abortion rights. Kansans for Constitutional Freedom is the coalition leading this effort.
Here in Oregon we expect a large number of women coming here to take advantage of our protection of the right to choose. Planned Parenthood is even opening a new clinic in Ontsrio, our easternmost city next to the border with Idaho, a trigger law state. If anyone on this blog has read about the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, they will see the coming trouble when states like Texas and Missouri pass laws allowing punishment of their citizens seeking abortion care outside their jurisdictions. This just adds to the stress and strain the women face. A horrible situation if the Court acts as anticipated--from a moral, legal, and public health perspective
At the end of the day this has evangelicals all over it. When desegregation happened, the evangelicals turned to abortion, and have been chipping away at it ever since. They couldn't care less about what happens when after birth, they just don't believe women are equal. Moreover, their mistresses and daughters will still have access to safe and legal abortion.
I fear that the "constitution in exile" crowd are running things over at the Federalist Society. They would like nothing better than to return American law and society back to the McKinley era. It grieves one to see them undoing the work of the great liberal courts (and I include ,, Berger's)
Where are all the women who marched on Washington after the 2016 election? The right is trying to turn America into a theocracy led by evangelical Christians. The majority of Americans do not want this; yet when our rights begins to be stripped away we kvetch online and do…nothing. They will not stop with abortion; having succeeded with it, they will be emboldened to attack the civil rights of LGBTQ persons next. Maybe the majority will wake up and take action then. I hope so, for all our sakes.
I am with you in concern about our rights, but that march was huge and took months to organize. I'm sure something is in the works. I can tell you there have been several marches and demonstrations led by smaller community organizations in my state. Perhaps there's something similar near you as well. These efforts are not less important just because they're smaller.
And for what it's worth, I'm not sure if you read this post as kvetching, but for me it was not that. It felt like all her other posts - laying out the data.
People have lives, kids, financial and job stresses to worry about every day. Those of us with privilege and time can maintain our outrage, work to GOTV against so many terrible voter restrictions, etc. But unfortunately it’s just not possible to dedicate that over so many years for many people. In theory, that’s why we have leaders that should be doing the ongoing work… also, this was a done deal as soon as Trump got elected, and it just nailed down what the right has been doing for 40 years. Didn’t happen overnight.
The Women’s March on Washington happened 5 years ago. Of course it couldn’t happen during the pandemic, but someone could be planning it now. Of course we all have lives. Women have always had lives. It’s no excuse for standing by and remaining silent while the country dies.
We continue to see a significant preference for ignorance and the suppression of women among our citizens and many elected or appointed officials. So much suffering, poverty, and loss! Thank you, as always for this (painfully) clear analysis.
You are absolutely right. Thank you for this summary of the data. I do think that not all anti abortion voices are intentionally causing harm. Many respond emotionally to the concept and forget to think deeply. Many will exclude their own personal experience and limit their thoughts to those voiced by their community and religious/political authorities. And then there are those who simply see this as a vehicle which they can ride to power. The abortion debate is perhaps the most effective “wedge issue” in America and has contributed to the decline in our social capital. Those of us who provide care for patients during pregnancy need to improve how we engage these anti-abortion voices, and learn to neutralize the “power riders” and help the shallow thinkers expand their imagination and circle of generosity.
You bring up some good points. I would like to add that while some anti-abortion people are indeed shallow and political, many firmly believe in the importance of supporting mothers in their ability to truly have a choice and not be coerced into an abortion by circumstances or the father, etc. Many also truly love children and want to defend them from the doctors who are killing them and the institutions profiting from their deaths. While you might be able to convince the shallow thinkers to change, there are many who are willing to put their time and money into helping women, and it would be ideal if opposing sides could work together, rather than fighting each other, to help women escape abusive relationships and to make sure employers provide maternity leave, etc.
Thanks for the summary. For some of us, you outlined the obvious, that women will seek an abortion regardless of the law. Those who are successful tend to do better emotionally, economically, and the children they bring into the world tend to do better overall as well.
Some people are concerned about the statistics. That more black pregnancies end in abortion than live birth tells me that those women have less access to contraceptives, or less understanding about how to use them ("The Pill" requires attention to timing as to when it's taken daily, and there are drugs and even foods that can cause changes in efficacy), resulting in more unwanted pregnancies.
I'm concerned that SCOTUS is now willing to create law that virtually all of the Justices stated was settled, simply because they've achieved a majority. While they didn't file the suit coming before them, they have systematically created the environment to see it advance, and telegraphed their intent. Obviously, they don't understand the implications.
The Right took a page out of the decades-long legal groundwork the Inc. Fund did in the South to prepare the ground for Brown and Brown II. They have industriously been sending cases forward for quite a while, but most didn't make it past the appellate Circuits.
If the change is inevitably coming, what can we do to mitigate the consequences or “ripple effect”? Will leaders, organizations, institutions be able to step up to make sure that these children and women are fully supported and cared for throughout in a meaningful way with compassion & dignity?Agree 100% that a ban will not stop abortions. It’s complicated. Hoping that all those affected by legal changes are not further marginalized.
Thank you for this clarifying and objective big picture perspective. Very informative.
This is definitively the last straw on the legitimacy and objectivity of the conservative justices... completely misguided hubris and disingenuous religiosity are running amok making a travesty of settled law.
There will be formidable backlash... and the court will probably "get packed" and a newer version of R-v-W will be the result. But, ugh... what a statement about bad we need to reform the Justice system at the Judicial level... and the ramifications and damage of letting anything "trump-like" near the white house that can so damage a once-proud institution.
It is a myth that the Court is apolitical. It has been political since Roger Taney and many many decisions are made by it with an eye to public opinion and political pressure. Witness "the switch in time that saved nine" of the FDR court packing fight. The greatest Court of the last 100 years was the Warren Court and its massive expansion of our rights and liberties was only possible because liberal public opinion and political power were in their full spring tide. Roe v Wade was the afterecho of that great wave of liberal jurisprudence and now we have a very very conservative Court reminiscent of the Lochner era. Woe betide us.
In Oct 2019 I saw Roberts at a synagogue in NYC. He is close friends with the head rabbi. There must have been about 1000 people in the sanctuary. The rabbi asked him a question about this very thing (SCOTUS & politics). Roberts, with a straight face, said the SCOTUS isn't political. There is nothing more vocal than a 1000 Jewish people in one building basically all groaning and saying BS.
If our wonderful Linda Greenhouse had been there she would have been one of the groaners! Perhaps the statement was aspirational, Justice Roberts knows well how that up to recent decades the Court has very much hesitated to outrage public sensibility and derived part of its legitimscy from steering a safe course. S. D. O'C's minimalism held the day off when the Court would generate an opinion like Alito's draft would be.
It is helpful to state that 25% of men have an abortion during their reproductive lives. (I don’t know the actual number and have never seen this reported. ). When I was 19, my girlfriend (we had been together for one month) had an abortion. She endured the discomfort for my abortion. The asymmetry of our abortion debate is part of the problem.
the only men that have abortions would be men who have uteruses, like trans men. this comment probably was intended to relay a message about how abortion also impacts men, but let's be clear: this is a health issue for people who can bear children and that is who the focus should be on.
I do think cis men should spend their energy listening to and supporting people who can bear children. But also part of the problem is that not enough pro-choice men are showing up in full support; doing the work of having conversations with anti-choice folks, showing up for protests, contacting their legislators. I see mostly people with uteruses doing the work. We need everyone to care.
Men have to be part of the conversation. Men are who get women pregnant in the first place, and what a woman does with that pregnancy very much affects the father. Men have to be part of the solution.
You are right that men can acknowledge that a woman suffers when a man gets her pregnant when he's not ready to be a father (like after only knowing each other for a month, when they really aren't prepared to have a child together.) Men definitely need to be part of this conversation, since women can't get pregnant without them, and fathers are definitely affected by whether the woman gets an abortion or carries the baby to term. While a pregnancy or abortion doesn't directly affect a man's body, it very much affects his whole life and his mental health.
They are. The anti-abortion crowd believes that abortion is murder, and therefore should be outlawed. That outlawing it does not stop it completely is not an argument they will find convincing.
If those of us who are pro-abortion-rights want to move overall public opinion in our direction, we need to use better arguments. Demonizing the other side does not work, no matter how good it makes us feel to do it.
If the arguments actually had much of anything to do with infant well-being, perhaps we’d see more legislation stating, “From the moment of conception the biological father will be responsible for appropriate child support to ensure the safety and well being of the child until that child reaches the age of 18 or 22 in special circumstances.” Fat chance.
Thank you for this great analysis! One aspect I haven't seen information about is the projected impact on the number of children who will end up in the foster care system due to abuse or neglect. I predict the number of kids in foster care will increase significantly in the states that prohibit abortion, and it won’t just be the unwanted children who end up in the system, but also the siblings of these childen. Is anyone tracking this?
Thank you for this data-rich illustration of why anti-abortion laws do not help anyone. As someone who has been pregnant twice, I cannot imagine going through that against my will. No one should have to be pregnant unless they really want to.
Thank you for these important facts and links to those articles. We need to keep reminding people that this is a public health issue. As President of the Board of the Trust Women Foundation, we operate two clinics in those abortion deserts you describe - Kansas and Oklahoma. We are on the front lines of trying to protect women's health. We need more people in these areas to step up and fight back, especially at the ballot box. In Kansas, the state constitution currently protects abortion rights but Republicans have put a measure on the Aug. 2 primary ballot (where voter turnout is lowest) to strip away those rights. Please spread the word and support the effort to defeat this measure - this will be the first test of the strength of the support for abortion rights. Kansans for Constitutional Freedom is the coalition leading this effort.
Here in Oregon we expect a large number of women coming here to take advantage of our protection of the right to choose. Planned Parenthood is even opening a new clinic in Ontsrio, our easternmost city next to the border with Idaho, a trigger law state. If anyone on this blog has read about the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, they will see the coming trouble when states like Texas and Missouri pass laws allowing punishment of their citizens seeking abortion care outside their jurisdictions. This just adds to the stress and strain the women face. A horrible situation if the Court acts as anticipated--from a moral, legal, and public health perspective
At the end of the day this has evangelicals all over it. When desegregation happened, the evangelicals turned to abortion, and have been chipping away at it ever since. They couldn't care less about what happens when after birth, they just don't believe women are equal. Moreover, their mistresses and daughters will still have access to safe and legal abortion.
I fear that the "constitution in exile" crowd are running things over at the Federalist Society. They would like nothing better than to return American law and society back to the McKinley era. It grieves one to see them undoing the work of the great liberal courts (and I include ,, Berger's)
Funny you should mention the FS. Some say that's who (along with Koch) paid for Kavanaugh's debt and bough themselves a SCOTUS seat.
Can all the Justices who are NOT Federalist members please stand up? Wow! three of you?
Where are all the women who marched on Washington after the 2016 election? The right is trying to turn America into a theocracy led by evangelical Christians. The majority of Americans do not want this; yet when our rights begins to be stripped away we kvetch online and do…nothing. They will not stop with abortion; having succeeded with it, they will be emboldened to attack the civil rights of LGBTQ persons next. Maybe the majority will wake up and take action then. I hope so, for all our sakes.
I am with you in concern about our rights, but that march was huge and took months to organize. I'm sure something is in the works. I can tell you there have been several marches and demonstrations led by smaller community organizations in my state. Perhaps there's something similar near you as well. These efforts are not less important just because they're smaller.
And for what it's worth, I'm not sure if you read this post as kvetching, but for me it was not that. It felt like all her other posts - laying out the data.
People have lives, kids, financial and job stresses to worry about every day. Those of us with privilege and time can maintain our outrage, work to GOTV against so many terrible voter restrictions, etc. But unfortunately it’s just not possible to dedicate that over so many years for many people. In theory, that’s why we have leaders that should be doing the ongoing work… also, this was a done deal as soon as Trump got elected, and it just nailed down what the right has been doing for 40 years. Didn’t happen overnight.
The Women’s March on Washington happened 5 years ago. Of course it couldn’t happen during the pandemic, but someone could be planning it now. Of course we all have lives. Women have always had lives. It’s no excuse for standing by and remaining silent while the country dies.
They have held marches every year since then and even organized protests within hours on Tuesday.
We were out there in the thousands in NYC. Rally organized in Foley Square in less than 12 hours. Where were you?
We continue to see a significant preference for ignorance and the suppression of women among our citizens and many elected or appointed officials. So much suffering, poverty, and loss! Thank you, as always for this (painfully) clear analysis.
You are absolutely right. Thank you for this summary of the data. I do think that not all anti abortion voices are intentionally causing harm. Many respond emotionally to the concept and forget to think deeply. Many will exclude their own personal experience and limit their thoughts to those voiced by their community and religious/political authorities. And then there are those who simply see this as a vehicle which they can ride to power. The abortion debate is perhaps the most effective “wedge issue” in America and has contributed to the decline in our social capital. Those of us who provide care for patients during pregnancy need to improve how we engage these anti-abortion voices, and learn to neutralize the “power riders” and help the shallow thinkers expand their imagination and circle of generosity.
You bring up some good points. I would like to add that while some anti-abortion people are indeed shallow and political, many firmly believe in the importance of supporting mothers in their ability to truly have a choice and not be coerced into an abortion by circumstances or the father, etc. Many also truly love children and want to defend them from the doctors who are killing them and the institutions profiting from their deaths. While you might be able to convince the shallow thinkers to change, there are many who are willing to put their time and money into helping women, and it would be ideal if opposing sides could work together, rather than fighting each other, to help women escape abusive relationships and to make sure employers provide maternity leave, etc.
Thanks for the summary. For some of us, you outlined the obvious, that women will seek an abortion regardless of the law. Those who are successful tend to do better emotionally, economically, and the children they bring into the world tend to do better overall as well.
Some people are concerned about the statistics. That more black pregnancies end in abortion than live birth tells me that those women have less access to contraceptives, or less understanding about how to use them ("The Pill" requires attention to timing as to when it's taken daily, and there are drugs and even foods that can cause changes in efficacy), resulting in more unwanted pregnancies.
I'm concerned that SCOTUS is now willing to create law that virtually all of the Justices stated was settled, simply because they've achieved a majority. While they didn't file the suit coming before them, they have systematically created the environment to see it advance, and telegraphed their intent. Obviously, they don't understand the implications.
The Right took a page out of the decades-long legal groundwork the Inc. Fund did in the South to prepare the ground for Brown and Brown II. They have industriously been sending cases forward for quite a while, but most didn't make it past the appellate Circuits.
Just a THANK YOU for a FANTASTIC report, and as always, such a clear presentation. YLE is just great!
If the change is inevitably coming, what can we do to mitigate the consequences or “ripple effect”? Will leaders, organizations, institutions be able to step up to make sure that these children and women are fully supported and cared for throughout in a meaningful way with compassion & dignity?Agree 100% that a ban will not stop abortions. It’s complicated. Hoping that all those affected by legal changes are not further marginalized.
Thank you for this clarifying and objective big picture perspective. Very informative.
This is definitively the last straw on the legitimacy and objectivity of the conservative justices... completely misguided hubris and disingenuous religiosity are running amok making a travesty of settled law.
There will be formidable backlash... and the court will probably "get packed" and a newer version of R-v-W will be the result. But, ugh... what a statement about bad we need to reform the Justice system at the Judicial level... and the ramifications and damage of letting anything "trump-like" near the white house that can so damage a once-proud institution.
It is a myth that the Court is apolitical. It has been political since Roger Taney and many many decisions are made by it with an eye to public opinion and political pressure. Witness "the switch in time that saved nine" of the FDR court packing fight. The greatest Court of the last 100 years was the Warren Court and its massive expansion of our rights and liberties was only possible because liberal public opinion and political power were in their full spring tide. Roe v Wade was the afterecho of that great wave of liberal jurisprudence and now we have a very very conservative Court reminiscent of the Lochner era. Woe betide us.
In Oct 2019 I saw Roberts at a synagogue in NYC. He is close friends with the head rabbi. There must have been about 1000 people in the sanctuary. The rabbi asked him a question about this very thing (SCOTUS & politics). Roberts, with a straight face, said the SCOTUS isn't political. There is nothing more vocal than a 1000 Jewish people in one building basically all groaning and saying BS.
If our wonderful Linda Greenhouse had been there she would have been one of the groaners! Perhaps the statement was aspirational, Justice Roberts knows well how that up to recent decades the Court has very much hesitated to outrage public sensibility and derived part of its legitimscy from steering a safe course. S. D. O'C's minimalism held the day off when the Court would generate an opinion like Alito's draft would be.
No, he was being willfully obtuse. As if he wasn't speaking to a bunch of people who knew better.
Indeed, thanks for adding more compelling big picture context; spot-on.
It is helpful to state that 25% of men have an abortion during their reproductive lives. (I don’t know the actual number and have never seen this reported. ). When I was 19, my girlfriend (we had been together for one month) had an abortion. She endured the discomfort for my abortion. The asymmetry of our abortion debate is part of the problem.
the only men that have abortions would be men who have uteruses, like trans men. this comment probably was intended to relay a message about how abortion also impacts men, but let's be clear: this is a health issue for people who can bear children and that is who the focus should be on.
I do think cis men should spend their energy listening to and supporting people who can bear children. But also part of the problem is that not enough pro-choice men are showing up in full support; doing the work of having conversations with anti-choice folks, showing up for protests, contacting their legislators. I see mostly people with uteruses doing the work. We need everyone to care.
Men have to be part of the conversation. Men are who get women pregnant in the first place, and what a woman does with that pregnancy very much affects the father. Men have to be part of the solution.
Couldn't agree more. It takes a community of good people.
You are right that men can acknowledge that a woman suffers when a man gets her pregnant when he's not ready to be a father (like after only knowing each other for a month, when they really aren't prepared to have a child together.) Men definitely need to be part of this conversation, since women can't get pregnant without them, and fathers are definitely affected by whether the woman gets an abortion or carries the baby to term. While a pregnancy or abortion doesn't directly affect a man's body, it very much affects his whole life and his mental health.
Thank you for being part of this conversation and sharing your experience.
Apparently all those nationwide problems are just collateral damage for the anti-abortion crowd.
They are. The anti-abortion crowd believes that abortion is murder, and therefore should be outlawed. That outlawing it does not stop it completely is not an argument they will find convincing.
If those of us who are pro-abortion-rights want to move overall public opinion in our direction, we need to use better arguments. Demonizing the other side does not work, no matter how good it makes us feel to do it.
Thank you for putting this together in such an excellent summary.