A few weeks ago, a Supreme Court document was leaked that would politically set America back many years in terms of women’s rights- 49 to be exact. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court passed the “Roe v. Wade” law with a 7-2 decision in favor of it. This law not only gives women access to a safe and legal abortion, but also gives citizens the right to marital, familial, and sexual privacy from their government. Since then, some conservatives have

 been trying to take this right away from women, and just this past year, multiple red states have passed their own laws that limit one’s right to abortion (for more information on this topic, read this article about Texas’s abortion bans). However, despite their efforts, Roe V Wade has stayed intact since it was passed. But this may all change now. 

The 98-page draft revealed that once made official, the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, therefore taking away the country-wide right to an abortion. This decision will now lay in the hands of each individual state. Most states with a democratic governor ensure that they will keep women’s rights to abortion, however, most conservative-led states say otherwise. In fact, thirteen states already have so-called “trigger laws” that will immediately ban abortion once the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. 

Since the document was released, protests from both sides of the argument have erupted. The pro-choice movement has organized over 380 rallies across the country, some of the largest being in the capital, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Austin, Texas. Slogans like “Abortion rights are human rights”, and “Bans off our bodies” have spread throughout the protests and on social media. On the other end of the spectrum, pro-lifers are spreading their common arguments stating that abortion is murder. There is no right or wrong opinion about abortion – however, everyone deserves the right to choose. No one should be forced to pursue something as life-changing as having a baby, no matter the circumstances. 

This Supreme Court decision would essentially make abortion a felony for the doctors performing the procedure in all states with bans.  Although the states have been unclear about the punishment for the mothers, prison sentences for the doctors are different in every state, but range from up to 2 years in Lousiana to 20 years or even life in Texas, where abortion is classified as either second or first-degree murder. Fines up to $100,000 have also been imposed in these states. Almost all of the states that have these laws put in place supposedly have exceptions for “abortions performed in the case of medical emergencies and when the mother’s life is at risk” (Forbes.com), and two states, North Dakota and Utah, have exceptions for rape and incest victims. But can these laws really be trusted? 

According to the Office on Women’s Health, about 10% of women (6.1 million) in America have difficulty staying pregnant. This means that they are unable to carry a baby to full term. The laws do not state the specific medical exemptions put into place, and the likelihood that every woman who claims to have a medical issue will be believed is extremely low. There is a high chance that these issues would be ignored, and women will be forced to give birth even if it means that they could suffer immensely from it. According to the CDC, approximately 800 women die during childbirth each year, and this number will continue to rise if women with medical/fertility issues don’t have the choice to receive an abortion. Additionally, there is an extraordinary amount of medications that, if a women were to get accidentally pregnant while taking them, would cause “life-altering birth defects”, some of which could kill the baby. Some of these include Accutane, Anti-Depressants, and Anti-Anxiety drugs, all of which are very commonly used by women in the US. In both of these cases, women could have to carry a baby that could physically harm the mother during childbirth, carry a baby who may not even make it past childbirth, or give birth to a baby with severe medical issues that could greatly decrease his or her quality of life. The choice to pursue these cases, as well as every other case involving abortion, needs to lie in the hands of the mother, not the government. 

As stated before, some of the states insist that there will also be exceptions for rape victims. But in a country where less than 20% of rape occurrences are reported and where barely any of the reported rapists are actually convicted, this cannot be believed. The fact is that most of these cases will either be ignored or the victim will not be able to say the truth and the women will be forced to give birth. But even if these women were all believed, only 2 out of the 13 states have these exceptions put into place. Every 1 out of 6 women in America has been the victim of rape or attempted rape, and to force these women to go through with an unwanted pregnancy is not only disgusting but also extremely traumatic. Again, this should be the women’s choice.

A common argument “Pro-Lifers” use is that women can put their babies up for adoption. But because of America’s adoption system, many children are forced into the foster-care system, where they are abused, neglected, moved from home to home, and separated from their siblings. Fatherly.com states that in 2017, there were 700,000 children in the foster-care system, and this number continues to rise every year. Around 23,000 of these kids end up aging out of the system, which means they never get adopted and end up homeless. Due to their lack of foundation and education, many of them end up in jail after aging out. Children should not be put into this system right at birth just because of certain people’s beliefs. 

Another argument is that women can get their tubes tied if they don’t want to get pregnant. However, tubal litigation, the process of taking away a women’s fertility, is often denied by doctors. Many doctors across the country, mostly those who are male, don’t allow women to perform this procedure. The reason for this is mostly only because our country still faces a great deal of sexism and the fact that men still believe that all women should be mothers, and because of the fact that men can use their position of power to make a women’s choice for them, just like they are with this law. Women are often denied this procedure if they are too young, if they only have one kid, or if their husband forbids it. Click this link to read numerous stories of why women were denied tubal litigation by their doctors. 

“Pro-life” seems to mean nothing more than “pro-birth”. These supporters would rather put children into a dangerous foster-care system, put children into a mother’s life who doesn’t have the ability to financially or emotionally support them, and make women continue with a birth that could kill them than allow a woman to make their own choice about their body. In a country where the constitution states that there must be a separation of church and state, it is astonishing that we have gone so far back into time as to put a law into place based primarily on one religion. Abortion is a medical procedure, and although it should not be taken lightly, there is absolutely no good reason that someone should be denied this because of someone else’s beliefs. There are so many issues in the world, and for our country to be focusing on something that affects absolutely no one except the women herself instead of the hundreds of other topics is absurd. Perhaps our country’s leaders should put more time into figuring out how to fix our increasing thirty trillion-dollar debt over figuring out what medical rights they should take away from women.