On June 24 the United States took a leap backward in history. This day marks the Supreme Court’s legislation to overturn the five-decade-old Roe v. Wade decision.
On this day, 167.5 million women in America lost their constitutional rights involving the most basic human concerns. We, as humans, are granted by the Constitution the autonomy of what happens to our bodies.
This right has been stripped away from women as the overturning of Roe v. Wade leaves many women across the U.S. with the inability to decide for themselves what they want to do in the case of a pregnancy. This reversal is devastating and hurls America back into a time of inequality.
Now, America’s women of childbearing age have less liberty over their body than their mothers and grandmothers did. Again, American women are faced with an era of struggle for abortion rights that had previously been conquered.
Human suffering will mark this struggle as half of the states in the U.S. are projected to make abortion illegal in most cases. Women will suffer mentally and physically due to this unjust decision.
Such a reckless and radical ruling will not stop abortions, it will only make them more dangerous, especially for the poor and marginalized. Despite what their situation is, women will be forced to carry their babies to term.
This means that even in a case of rape or incest, women will not have the choice to put themselves first. As if these life altering events are not emotionally damaging enough, they will have to bear the aftermath of them for at least nine months, or even an entire lifetime if adoption is not an option.
Such a profound life choice of having a child should not be decided by a state. It should not be decided by a government. It should not be decided by the father-to-be. That choice should be placed in the hands of the woman who is pregnant, and hers only.
This ruling’s careless dismissal of women’s rights and equality will have serious repercussions. Women will suffer the lifelong consequences of an inequitable decision for decades to follow.