Roe, or hard roe, refers to fish or shellfish egg masses, stored either inside the ovaries or externally. It is also the surname of “Jane Roe,” a name temporarily adopted by plaintiff Norma McCorvey during Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed abortions within the first trimester. Norma herself never had an abortion. She gave birth to a child during the three years of court proceedings, none of which she attended. After the decision, she spent many years as an abortion rights activist, and came out as a lesbian.
Later, when the money and attention began to dry up in the abortion rights movement, Norma began to change her stance. She became a born-again Christian, said she was no longer lesbian, and began appearing at anti-abortion events. However, in a documentary filmed just prior to her death, McCorvey confessed that much of her anti-abortion activism had been part of an act; she was the “big fish” of the operation.
The politicization of the abortion debate has framed it as a matter of ideology, rather than a public health concern. As a result, abortion rights - which disproportionately affect minority women - are increasingly limited. Recent abortion bans in the United States have gone so far as to challenge the authority of the Supreme Court itself, showing the degree of political momentum contained within the anti-abortion movement.
Ideology, relative to the abortion debate, is defined as the set of ideas and beliefs of a group or political party. Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. In Roe v. Wade, abortion was made legal within the first trimester of a pregnancy. The crucial case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992 changed the first trimester framework to one of viability, allowing states to prohibit abortions of fetuses that could potentially survive when removed from the womb. This is where the trouble really began for the abortion rights movement, as the period of viability grows each day with the rapid advancement of medical technology. It’s possible that one day fetuses will be able to develop fully outside of the womb, effectively making morning-after pills illegal.
While that may be an extreme example, it certainly reflects the end goal of many people who oppose abortion. About 39% of Americans say that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Their most common argument is that abortion is murder - an idea especially popular amongst evangelicals. As far as ideological and ethnic categories go, 77% of white evangelists say that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. The difference here suggests a link between religion, race and the politics of abortion.
A hotly debated aspect of the abortion debate is the term ‘post-abortion syndrome’ (or PAS), which refers to psychological distress associated with abortions. The science seems to point towards it being a valid syndrome within the larger category of PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. However, there is no scientific agreement on whether or not abortions cause more PTSD than births, and there tend to be pre-existing conditions in those who experience trauma arising from pregnancy, in general.
PAS is a common talking-point of feminists who oppose abortion. Their focus is on preventing and destigmatizing pregnancy, but they don’t often speak on the fact that some well-educated women who use extensive contraception still become pregnant. They also don’t address the racial disparity in regards to both sex education and abortion-seekers. Black and hispanic women are the most likely to get an abortion, while majority-white schools tend to have significantly more funding than schools with mostly minority populations. If abortion is struck down, it would affect white women less than minority women - other economic disparities notwithstanding. Preventing and destigmatizing pregnancies is important for women’s rights, but so is balancing the rights of all women equally. If sex education helps prevent and destigmatize pregnancy, it’s important to address how minorities have less educational resources. In the abortion debate, perspectives have become focused too heavily on moralistic arguments, which neglect social and historical context.
The public’s perception of when an abortion becomes murder has changed dramatically over the past two centuries. Up until the mid 1800s, abortions were allowed under common law in both England and the United States up until “the quickening” - the first detectable movements of the fetus. Women were allowed to announce their own “quickening,” and generally turned to other women to terminate their pregnancies. Horatio Storer–a doctor from the American Medical Association–persuaded the public to limit abortion by convincing them that abortions degraded society and harmed mothers, an idea which persists currently. It’s worth noting that abortions within the first trimester today have overwhelmingly low chances of causing infertility or other harm. Storer did not imagine how his ideas might persist and develop over time.The goal behind his message was to place abortions into the hands of licensed (entirely male) doctors, but his campaign ended up persuading people to outlaw abortion entirely.
Over a hundred years later, after Roe v. Wade made abortions legal again, a group of evangelical pastors formed a movement called the “New Right,” which aimed to protect Puritan churches from losing their tax ammenities by unifying their constituents against a common enemy: abortion. With the help of Norma McCorvey, the “New Right” was able to slowly chip away at abortion rights. Under the umbrella of informed consent, seven states now mandate doctors to provide abortion-seekers with unscientific information, and five other states require that abortion-seekers be told that the state favors childbirth over abortion.
Mississippi introduced a “heartbeat” bill, banning abortion once cardiac activity has been detected, challenging Roe v. Wade directly. Texas’s similar ban provides judicial immunity to the state officials who wrote it. The Supreme Court has already approved Texas’s legislation, but not without dissent - Chief Justice Roberts joined the left-leaning minority in an opinion which quoted a judicial precedent from the year Abraham Lincoln was born. According to him, “it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake.”
Roberts’ quote being linked to the time leading up to the Civil War seems to suggest that the United States may be repeating a pattern of self-destruction. While such a statement can easily be dismissed as conjecture, the Supreme Court’s recently-leaked draft opinion, which would overturn Roe v. Wade, could turn state borders into political ones. Another possibility is that a renewed interest in the abortion rights movement will emerge. Regardless of the political results, women across the country will be directly affected by a lack of federal support for abortion rights. As has been made clear earlier, minority women stand to lose the most.
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