Roe v Wade comes under siege in Supreme Court
“Of the people, by the people, for the people,” is brought up in almost every constitutional controversy; yet in the case of Roe V. Wade, “people” seems to be lacking the opinion of those who create said people. Simply the idea of overturning a near half-century, foundational landmark case regarding women’s rights is enough to strike fear and anxiety into not only women, girls, and other birth givers within the USA, but across the globe. At what point does it become absurd that guns and marijuana are being supported more by our government than reproductive rights? An abortion ban itself is not the only worrisome consequence that would result following the possible overturning, but the abominable snowball of effects that would follow suit are unarguable in its contradiction.
The consequence at hand that would follow the overturning would be the banning or limiting of abortion access within about half of the United States. Wisconsin is one of the 26 states projected to restrict abortion, meaning that for people in need to find access to an abortion appointment would be forced to drive to Minnesota or Illinois. Considering gas prices with the current Ukraine and Russia conflict, and many other socioeconomic barriers, this is not feasible for many.
Following the ban, multiple studies prove that when abortion is restricted, the same or a similar amount of abortions take place. This emphasizes the fact that the government can only ban legal abortions, when in honesty they are only banning safe abortions that ensure the optimum health outcome for the mother. This happens among all types of bans in countries where abortion is completely restricted but also under circumstantial bans in which only life-threatening pregnancies are permitted to ensue in abortion.
A common refute against abortion is that women can simply enter their children into the foster care system. When, in fact, there are an average of 424,000 children in U.S. foster care at any given time. The denial of abortion would force women to give birth just to give up their child to an already overpopulated, underbudgeted system that is, in many aspects, corrupt in nature. On the other hand, there are still many cases of successful foster care, in which children are appropriately removed from situations in which they are being neglected, abused, or orphaned. These children deserve to have committed foster families and case workers. Furthermore, in the event where thousands of more infants are dumped into the foster care system as a result of banning abortion, these workers will become even more stretched thin.
When fostering isn’t argued, the idea that if women got pregnant, they are responsible to care for their children arises. In many of these cases, women do not have the money to care for a child (especially considering the STILL existing wage gap), more so in cases where the father is absent for a variety of reasons. In this event, women are forced to work more and the option of breastfeeding, which is already a scarce practice due to health issues and stigma surrounding it, is not plausible for new mothers. The final option is to feed this surplus of infants with over-priced, already stretched-thin formula. The formula shortage is as worrisome as ever, and the prospect of restricting abortion would only make conditions worse for existing mothers and infants.
The domino effect of consequences following an abortion ban are clear and undisputale. The issues surrounding women’s rights are already neglected as is and overturning a policy that has been in place for 49 years should be the least of the senate’s worries considering the pandemic, climate change, and the war going on overseas.
Reference article: https://www.guttmacher.org/infographic/2020/abortion-occurs-worldwide-where-it-broadly-legal-and-where-it-restricted
By Paige Helfrich
Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue VIII
Published May 23rd 2022