Gabriella Ferlita
The US Supreme Court has eliminated a woman’s right to an abortion.
Millions of people in the US will now lose the legal right to obtain an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned the milestone 1973 legislation that guarantees women the right to abort up until foetal viability.
The judgement is said to now be transforming abortion rights in the USA, with individual states now being able to decide whether to ban the procedure.
In May, a draft opinion was leaked on Roe v Wade that suggested that the Supreme Court would vote in favour of overturning the legislation.
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Half of all states in the country are expected to introduce these new restrictions or bans on abortions, while 13 have so far passed trigger laws that will automatically outlaw the procedure following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Others are also expected to pass new restrictions on terminations.
Abortion access is expected to be reduced for around 36 million women of reproductive age, according to research from Planned Parenthood, a healthcare clinic that carries out medical terminations.
The Supreme Court was previously considering a case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenged the ban in Mississippi on obtaining abortions after 15 weeks.
However, the court instead ruled in favour of the state, which effectively ended the constitutional right to an abortion.
Democratic governors of states like California, New Mexico and Michigan have already announced their plans to enshrine abortion rights within their constitutions now that Roe v Wade is overturned.
The landmark 1973 rule of Roe v Wade case saw the Supreme Court rule by a vote that a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy was protected by the US constitution.
The ruling gave American people the absolute right to an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy (the first three months), but allowed for restrictions in the second trimester and for prohibitions in the third, depending on a state-to-state basis.
But in the years since in the US, anti-abortion rulings have gradually reduced access in more than a dozen states. Tyla has previously spoken to a woman, Nancy Cárdenas Peña, who has been living that reality for many years already.
In Texas, where abortion is illegal after six weeks or after ‘foetal activity’ is detected (in some cases before a woman even realises she is pregnant).
Thanks to the Senate Bill 8 (SB8), Texan women have had to tread carefully around this strict abortion law just to gain control of their reproductive health, often taking matters into their own hands. You can read more on that here.