What would happen if the right to abortion was annulled in the US?
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Editor's Note:
Claudia Dreifus is a contributor to The New York Times, New York Review of Books, and The Nation.
She also teaches journalism to graduate science students at Columbia University.
The opinions expressed in this comment are his own.
(CNN) --
On Friday, members of the so-called right-to-life movement gathered in Washington to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Roe v.
Wade of the Supreme Court in 1973. They also celebrated the Dobbs v.
Jackson last June who repealed it.
Among my friends, many of them veterans of the women's rights campaigns of the 1970s, there is no celebration.
The Roe v.
Wade of January 22, 1973 effectively legalized abortion throughout the United States.
On a human level, it freed women of childbearing age from the pain and danger of illegal abortion.
I went to college in the pre-Roe vs.
Wade in the early 1960s. I still remember what it was like to be a young woman at a time when a mistake in birth control could destroy your future.
If that happened, illegal abortion, often in the underground world of crime and in physical danger, was, for most of us, the only option.
Why did the Supreme Court overturn the Roe v Wade ruling that decriminalized abortion?
Young people are sexual;
the young women become pregnant.
In my college circle, one constantly heard the most horrific stories: operations in motel rooms, surgeries without anesthesia, abortionists raping women seeking their services.
Strange as it may seem today: this was common.
I had a friend who developed a pelvic infection after a clandestine abortion;
she became infertile.
I got pregnant in 1964. I was 19 years old.
At first, I tried to abort myself.
I failed.
A friend of my mother's put me in touch with a doctor in Pennsylvania.
On the way there, I felt terrified.
What if he wasn't a genuine doctor?
Would I get an infection like my friend's?
The thought that she might die kept coming back.
As I drove through the bleak January landscape of rural Pennsylvania, I thought, “Whatever the risks, you have to do this.
There is no going back."
I drew the lucky card.
It turned out to be a real doctor.
They operated on me under anesthesia and with the appropriate medication.
He did abortions because he believed in it, never charging more than US$100. The community protected him.
Demonstration in favor of abortion in the US
At the end of a very long day, the doctor handed me a packet of birth control pills and said, "I don't want to see you here again."
At that moment, my life began anew.
My future was mine.
Today I am a teacher and writer.
None of this would have been possible if, as a teenager, I had been forced to have a child.
I've been reliving all of this ever since the Dobbs vs.
Jackson.
After Roe v.
Wade, many of us believed that the era of clandestine abortion was over forever.
We could not imagine a society in which rights, once granted, could be terminated.
Yet here we are.
The Guttmacher Institute, which collects data on reproductive issues, notes that since the decision to repeal Roe v.
Wade, some 24 states "have or are likely to ban abortion."
Today, for the first time in half a century, one hears stories that echo the experiences of bad times.
There are some differences, of course.
Birth control methods are more abundant and widely accessible.
And abortion isn't completely clandestine: It's still completely legal in more than half of all states and the District of Columbia.
But in those states with new restrictions, women's health care, whether they seek an abortion or not, has been compromised.
This Woman Nearly Lost Her Life Because She Couldn't Access An Abortion In Texas
In several states, doctors are frankly scared.
State laws are changing.
Lawyers and judges are making decisions about whether women—and in some cases girls—can get the care their doctors know they need.
Women fear being investigated if they miscarry.
Politicians advocate that abortion be declared homicide.
Meanwhile, people using the rheumatoid arthritis drug methotrexate are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain.
The drug can induce a miscarriage.
Pharmacists fear that under the post-Dobbs v.
Jackson, can be prosecuted for dispensing it.
The current landscape is especially daunting for women of my generation and terrifying for women of childbearing age.
But it's also important to remember that the Roe v.
Wade of 1973 occurred in a context of a broader societal expansion of women's rights, and that the fight is not over.
In the 1970s, women demanded equal access to male-dominated professions, an end to discrimination in education, and above all, equality before the law.
In those years, I remember feeling like for women it was a whole new chapter.
What Roe did vs.
Wade was to allow women to decide if and when they would have children.
That made progress possible at work, in education, and in personal relationships.
It is not a coincidence that recent research shows that women living in states that ban abortion face greater economic insecurity.
Does it mean Dobbs vs.
Jackson that the era of gender advancement is over?
Not necessarily.
Since Dobbs, state legislators, particularly in red states, have been fighting each other to enact new laws restricting abortion access.
But these moves are unpopular, especially among the millions of Americans who have benefited from legal abortion.
Women without access to abortion suffer greater economic insecurity 0:48
In five states, voters have defeated anti-abortion initiatives on the ballot.
Last November, the US Senate remained under Democratic control, in part due to voter anger over abortion restrictions.
On a less formal level, just as in the past, Americans are finding creative ways around the new constraints.
In Texas, where a plethora of draconian laws have been enacted, many women now go to Mexico for gynecological care.
In blue states, clinics have expanded to accommodate women from neighboring jurisdictions seeking abortions.
Of course, traveling requires money.
Many of the most restrictive states are among the poorest: Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma.
NGOs like The Brigid Alliance and local abortion funds help with travel costs for women in need, but they are unable to meet the demand that exists.
However, they are an indispensable lifeline to all who can help, as is the corporate support available for some workers to travel out of state for abortions.
As the fight continues, reproductive rights advocates should not underestimate the resolve of the anti-abortion community.
Fifty years ago, they vowed to undo Roe v.
Wade.
For half a century, they marched and lobbied and made sure their conservatives were appointed to the Supreme Court.
And so, after decades of persistent work, their efforts paid off on June 24, 2022, when Judge Samuel Alito, speaking on behalf of the six conservatives on the high court, opined: “We hold that Roe and Casey should be struck down. .
The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.
Writing on behalf of the majority of seven judges 50 years ago in Roe v.
Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun found that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant person's freedom to have an abortion.
At the pro-choice moment when Roe emerged, few thought that what happened in Dobbs could ever happen.
As a journalist, I try to avoid taking partisan positions.
However, this topic is personal.
I'm still haunted by that trip to Pennsylvania and how scared I was.
Today I have students and friends who are just beginning to move towards their promising future.
It hurts to think that they might experience the same suffering that was so common among my cohort.
AbortionRoe v.
Wade