Roe v Wade: Back to the Dark Ages

The leaked draft majority decision by USA Supreme Court typifies how the country still hasn’t been able to get over its dark history of oppression and exploitation. America brutalised and dehumanised Native Americans, Black slaves, and is continuing to do so to females. The idea that it’s ok for a person to kill another person who makes them feel threatened on their property but a woman cannot make a choice about whether or not to have a baby is perverse. 

If it is child abuse to have a child and not care for it; how can it be safe child welfare to be forced to have a child you cannot care for? There is no civilised society that should compel people to have a child just to satisfy a certain fundamentalist religious dogma. The notion that abortion should be outlawed for the benefit of society treats the idea of women making informed choices as a monstrous option. The judiciary cannot claim to be protecting society while making life needlessly difficult and painful for women.

Alito claims that the American constitution does not make any provision for the right to abortion. His implication being that the founding fathers would not have wanted to make it a right guaranteed under the law. However, when it was originally dreamt up the American constitution was intended to establish the presence and survival of Americans in North America. We know however that at the time of the writing of the constitution women were not deemed to be entitled to the privilege of all the rights within the constitution. Through the suffragette and civil rights movements it became clear that for the sake of fairness and reasonableness women should be entitled to full rights as American citizens. The right to choose what happens to their bodies is clearly one of those rights. The fact that it’s a choice unique to women and therefore not comprehended by the most men who have been in charge of legislation and judicial determination should not mean it should not exist. 

The idea that the right to abortion is not in keeping with American societal norms is just not tenable. America was visualised as a place where people could chart a brave new course. A place where there would be an equal entitlement for people who had been oppressed by the weight of imperialism. Banning abortion simply replaces imperialism with the conservative establishment. It serves little purpose and does just as much harm. 

Allowing individual states to decide whether or not to legalise abortion will pointlessly politicise an issue which should be a matter of personal choice. If anything, that would appear to set a course for society that might fatally undermine the American constitution.