The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the nationwide right to abortion. There was a majority vote by the judges to overturn the ruling, according to an announcement by the Supreme Court on Friday. As a result of the court’s decision, abortion rights are expected to be massively restricted, with serious consequences for women in the country.
The 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade ruling put abortion under the right to privacy. Thus, legal prohibitions were not possible at all in the first trimester of pregnancy, limited in the second trimester, and permissible in the third trimester if the life or health of the pregnant woman was in danger.
Existing state laws criminalizing abortion were declared invalid. However, the continued existence of the provision depended, and continues to depend, significantly on the holdings of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court decided in 1992, after Clarence Thomas, yet another Supreme Court judge nominated by a Republican president, to affirm the ruling in principle, but declared state regulations that did not impose an “undue burden” on the pregnant woman to be permissible.
Tested out in the courts
In subsequent years and decades, whether the scope of the burden was permissible was repeatedly tested in the courts: For example, pregnant women were obliged to have an ultrasound view of the fetus before making a decision, or to make arrangements for burial. Or they had to wait 24 to 72 hours between counseling and performing the abortion – making it especially difficult for procedures that required traveling a long distance.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016. Incumbent U.S. President Barack Obama was prevented by the Republican Party from naming a successor, declaring that such an important decision shortly before an election was reserved for the winner of the election.
Republican Donald Trump won the election in November 2016. While in office, he filled three vacancies on the Supreme Court: with conservatives Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The latter succeeded liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, incidentally, died in September 2020 – two months before the next presidential election. However, this time the Republican party did not put the decision in the hands of the winner of the election.
Conservative states with increasingly strict laws
During the term of Donald Trump between 2017 and 2021, conservative-governed states kept passing strict abortion laws that openly violated the landmark ruling. Their calculation: when lawsuits against the laws are filed, they could ultimately end up before the Supreme Court, which would have to deal with Roe v. Wade again. At the end of 2021, the Supreme Court began deliberations on a Mississippi law banning abortions beginning at 16 weeks of pregnancy.
A draft opinion by Chief Justice Samuel Alito on the case leaks to the public in early May 2022 – according to the opinion, Roe v. Wade is overturned. As a result, there would no longer be a fundamental right to abortions nationwide in the U.S., leaving the matter to the states. In total, it is estimated that abortion would become illegal again in about half of the states.
Now the Supreme Court’s official decision has been handed down, as expected Roe c. Wade overturned. Democratic Party want to use the issue to mobilize voters for the Midterms this fall: 60 of the 100 votes in the Senate are required to advance a related bill to enshrine legal abortion; currently, Democrats hold only 50 seats. President Joe Biden has announced that he could sign the bill into law in January 2023.
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