Roe v Wade at 49

The Supreme Court decision that ultimately granted female citizens the privacy to assume control over their own reproductive health has been the law for less than half a century. In spite of this, there are more people living now who have never known America without Roe v Wade than who remember the illegality of pregancy termination before it. As a junior high student, I can recall the earliest pro-life bumper stickers showing up on cars in early 1973 and wondering what in the world they were about. I also recall there not being any organized pro-life groups or communities either locally or nationally, but in hindsight this was likely attributed to the fact nobody in my age group at the time had no idea what the Roe v Wade decision really meant and therefore really had no opinion. This personal opinion thing became an issue for membership in certain religious groups as I would discover a few years later. Understanding the implications and repercussions of this legal decision and whether you agreed with it or whether you did not would come to matter a great deal within a decade. It would become a determining issue indicating which side of the political divide you stood, especially along this most religious and conservative stretch of Old Route 66. With the emergence of the Moral Majority in the late 1970s and subsequent rise to political prominence of charismatic Evangelical Christian celebrities promoting their intolerance of the practice, opposition to abortion on demand became an earmark of American Conservatism. It not only supplied its adherents with an unmistakable political identification mark, also it equipped them with two very useful tools. Those implements, a prod to get conservative voters to the polls every election day and a bludgeon to beat down every single opponent regardless of party, have been unsparingly wielded in every campaign for four decades. For the legions of “one-issue voters,” Abortion/Choice has become THE one issue or at very least the deciding issue in guiding their ballot selections. Pro-Life politicians have gotten a disproportionate amount of mileage out of being able to hide behind a constituency to whom they will never have to answer.

From the moment this particular SCOTUS decision was handed down, it has been the stated goal of all pro-life conservatives regardless of party to reverse it. In the first decade of the decision, the greatest legislative victory for the Pro-Life Movement was the passage of the Hyde Amendment, which took effect in 1980. The Hyde Amendment barred the use of federal funds to pay for abortion services. Those opposed to abortion have since made it into a state’s rights issue and as recent as 2021 have passed many restrictive abortion laws to limit its availability. Going beyond old and new restrictions on the practice, some rabidly passionate opponents have taken their opposition to the level of outright violence against abortion clinics and providers. Despite all the harsh division in the nation, freedom of choice still remains slightly more popular that its elimination.

As was noted above, it has been the stated goal of every anti-abortion Conservative in elected office to overturn Roe v Wade. The wisest among them have long understood the most effective way to accomplish this is by shifting the ideological balance of the court that decided it in their favor. As Roe enters its fiftieth year, the composition of that court has shifted such that reversing it is not only far more possible than it has ever been but much more likely than not in doing so. Many media pundits have gone so far as to proclaim Roe v Wade and the era of abortion on demand is hanging by a thread so slender that it is on life support.

Regardless of what happens or doesn’t happen with the Roe decision, abortion will remain a divisive issue ultimately decided by the states. Conservative legislatures have already restricted the practice in many states to the point of rendering Roe v Wade moot. We can expect things to get more creatively extreme very like the recent Texas Heartbeat Act that authorizes enforcement by private individuals via civil litigation against any person having an abortion after six weeks gestation or deemed complicit in assisting with it. Even in progressive liberal bastions a woman’s right of choice in reproduction will remain under a constant barrage of attack from critics and will necessitate ongoing vigilance by the Pro-Choice community.

My own views on abortion have run the full gamut. In forty-nine years, I have gone from no opinion to full opposition to Roe to full support of it. It is funny how life experience can prompt alteration of critical viewpoints. As was alluded to previously, my membership in a church was initially rejected because as a naive 16-year-old, without indoctrination, I thought terminating an unviable pregnancy or to save the life of a woman were actually reasonable interventions. As a once devout believer in deity, I freely accepted the required opinion that lives of unborn children were sacrosanct above all else. When I became a registered nurse and cared for women who had received raging infections after seeking pregnancy termination in undocumented abortion clinics, I came to favor stricter regulation of them. When I became a nurse anesthetist and began providing obstetrical anesthesia, our doctrine and priorities of practice commanded much of my attention, especially when I was doing crash C-sections at 2 AM. I also became acutely aware that pregnancy and childbirth were not for everyone as some people have physically limiting conditions that prohibit them from carrying a pregnancy to full term safely. I am forever grateful to be retired from my anesthesia practice at this time. Even though I was not involved in OB anesthesia at the time of my retirement, it did not require a lot of creative thought to see where someone with a physically limiting problem being forced to carry a pregancy to term and having an extreme negative maternal outcome would a create a huge problem. Who exactly would cover the liability for that? Our priorities while sitting in the driver’s seat in those 2 AM C-sections dictated we do not kill the factory. “Momma can make a new baby but baby cannot make a new Momma!” This priority was borne of long since settle case law. How will this be altered by a policy dictating mandatory childbirth? It is advisable to all Pro-Life crusaders and those politicians whose water they carry to be very careful what they wish for. They might get it. I am curious if their cause could maintain its voter prodding effect or if their bludgeon would be as useful in the face of the backlash against them overturning Roe v Wade would generate. This next year is going to be interesting. I have a feeling America will be once again transiting some uncharted waters if forced reproduction becomes a national policy.

STATE FACTS ABOUT ABORTION