tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/abortion-rights-13360/articlesAbortion rights – The Conversation2024-03-26T20:54:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2266702024-03-26T20:54:50Z2024-03-26T20:54:50ZAbortion drug access could be limited by Supreme Court − if the court decides anti-abortion doctors can, in fact, challenge the FDA<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584450/original/file-20240326-30-a29mv8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pro-abortion rights activists rally in front of the Supreme Court on March 26, 2024, the day justices heard oral arguments about the use of mifepristone.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abortion-rights-activist-rally-in-front-of-the-us-supreme-news-photo/2107843451?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Who has the legal right to challenge decisions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration? And should the moral umbrage of a group of anti-abortion rights doctors shift policy across the country, limiting women’s ability to get the widely used abortion drug mifepristone?</em></p>
<p><em>These are a few of the central questions that the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-abortion-pill-arguments-mifepristone/">Supreme Court fielded on March 26, 2024</a>, during the oral arguments in <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/food-and-drug-administration-v-alliance-for-hippocratic-medicine-2/">FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine</a>. A group of doctors is challenging the FDA, saying that the federal agency’s decision allowing people to get mifepristone via telehealth, at up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, is causing some medical professionals harm.</em></p>
<p><em>Amy Lieberman, politics and society editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with family law and reproductive justice scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gCJEShUAAAAJ&hl=en">Naomi Cahn</a> and <a href="https://www.law.gwu.edu/sonia-m-suter">Sonia Suter</a> to better understand what’s behind the oral arguments before the Supreme Court – and how the court’s eventual decision, expected in June, could affect people’s ability to get abortions by using mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortion.</em> </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584469/original/file-20240326-26-9qpi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="White boxes of Mifepristone are seen stacked in a shelf." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584469/original/file-20240326-26-9qpi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584469/original/file-20240326-26-9qpi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584469/original/file-20240326-26-9qpi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584469/original/file-20240326-26-9qpi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584469/original/file-20240326-26-9qpi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584469/original/file-20240326-26-9qpi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584469/original/file-20240326-26-9qpi95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A cabinet holds mifepristone at a health clinic in Casper, Wyo., in June 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cabinet-containing-mifepristone-seen-in-wellspring-health-news-photo/1258730531?adppopup=true">Rachel Woolf for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><strong>What is this case about?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Sonia Suter:</strong> It’s about whether the FDA’s regulations for the use of <a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information-patients-and-providers/questions-and-answers-mifepristone-medical-termination-pregnancy-through-ten-weeks-gestation">mifepristone were appropriately loosened in 2016 and 2021</a>. These changes generally make mifepristone more accessible by allowing people to have the medication prescribed via a telehealth visit and then getting the pill in the mail.</p>
<p><strong>Naomi Cahn:</strong> That 2016 regulation also extended the time during which mifepristone could be prescribed, increasing it from seven to 10 weeks gestation. Medication abortions accounted for <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/2024/03/medication-abortion-accounted-63-all-us-abortions-2023-increase-53-2020">63% of all abortions</a> that occurred in the U.S. in 2023. This percentage has increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022.</p>
<p><strong>Why are these guidelines being challenged?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Suter:</strong> A group of doctors and medical associations that oppose abortion <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/us/erin-hawley-abortion-pill-supreme-court.html">are challenging these guidelines</a> and using this court case as a way, we believe, to limit the ability to get an abortion by using medication. </p>
<p>They challenged the drug’s initial approval by the FDA and the relaxed restrictions on how it is used. They claimed that the FDA exceeded its authority, did not rely on proper data and did not have adequate support from scientific studies for its decision that mifepristone could be safely prescribed. Their initial arguments, which the lower court accepted, would have banned mifepristone. But that decision was not upheld by the <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-10362-CV1.pdf">5th Circuit Court</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, the issues before the Supreme Court focus on whether the FDA should have expanded the use of mifepristone. Virtually all studies have shown that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/01/health/abortion-pill-safety.html">mifepristone is not dangerous</a>, even with the relaxed conditions on its use. </p>
<p><strong>What is the federal government’s central argument against these claims?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Cahn:</strong> The government is stating that the FDA appropriately reviewed all of the evidence and its decision was appropriate. </p>
<p>Indeed, the attorney representing the mifepristone manufacturer, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2023/23-235_p8k0.pdf">Jessica Ellsworth</a>, pointed out that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-pill-mifepristone-redacted-studies-supreme-court-ebd60519fd44dc69c5ac213580d1c1ba#:%7E:text=A%20medical%20journal%20has%20retracted,and%20flaws%20in%20their%20research.">the studies cited by the challengers have either been</a> discredited <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/02/09/1230175305/abortion-pill-mifepristone-retraction-supreme-court">or withdrawn because they were unreliable</a>. </p>
<p>Another critical issue, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/26/us/abortion-pill-supreme-court">U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said to the justices today</a>, is whether the organization challenging this ruling actually has legal standing – the right to sue – to bring a lawsuit against the FDA. </p>
<p><strong>Why is the question of who can sue the FDA important here?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Suter:</strong> Under U.S. law, you cannot succeed in court every time you are unhappy. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution requires parties who bring suit in federal court to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-2/clause-1/standing-requirement-overview">have “standing.”</a> This means parties have to show that they have been injured in some tangible way or threatened with such an injury by the acts that are the basis of the lawsuit. In this case, a group of doctors morally opposed to abortion are saying they have been injured. Their claim is that with the changes in the FDA’s regulation of mifepristone prescriptions, patients will come to them in the emergency room, requiring medical care that violates these religious beliefs and causes them stress. </p>
<p>The government’s response is that the FDA is not making them do anything, including prescribe these pills or treat these patients. And <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/conscience/conscience-protections/index.html">there are conscience laws</a> that say if the treatment is against a health care provider’s beliefs, they do not need to provide that care. So the government asks: How are the doctors harmed here?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584543/original/file-20240326-18-ohf6hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A line of people in formal clothing are seen behind barricades outside the Supreme Court on a grey day." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584543/original/file-20240326-18-ohf6hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584543/original/file-20240326-18-ohf6hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584543/original/file-20240326-18-ohf6hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584543/original/file-20240326-18-ohf6hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584543/original/file-20240326-18-ohf6hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584543/original/file-20240326-18-ohf6hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584543/original/file-20240326-18-ohf6hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">People wait outside the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments on mifepristone on March 26, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-wait-in-line-outside-us-supreme-court-to-hear-oral-news-photo/2107843290?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><strong>What is your impression from the justices, listening to these arguments?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Cahn:</strong> I was surprised by how much time the justices spent asking about legal standing and whether there was a direct enough connection between the plaintiffs and the FDA’s guidance. </p>
<p><strong>What’s the potential impact of the court’s eventual ruling on this case?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Cahn:</strong> The court’s decision has implications for the whole FDA approval process as well as access to medication abortion, including through telehealth and the mail. If the court rules for the doctors challenging the FDA, mifepristone would still be available, but access to it would be severely limited because people would need an in-person visit before they could get it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two legal scholars who study abortion-related laws explain what happened at the Supreme Court in a case that could make it harder to get an abortion.Naomi Cahn, Professor of Law, University of VirginiaSonia Suter, Professor of Law, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2256192024-03-20T12:28:41Z2024-03-20T12:28:41ZBiden cannot easily make Roe v. Wade federal law, but he could still make it easier to get an abortion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582808/original/file-20240319-20-n2gu76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=419%2C62%2C4759%2C3385&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protester marks the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision anniversary outside the Supreme Court building on June 23, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://mapi.associatedpress.com/v2/items/39d8d89cb379472ea647b7756c313426/preview/AP23175098262311.jpg?wm=api&tag=app_id=1,user_id=904438,org_id=101781">Associated Press/Nathan Howard</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Joe Biden promised during his State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, that he would make the right to get an abortion a federal law. </p>
<p>“If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/03/08/remarks-by-president-biden-in-state-of-the-union-address-3/">law of the land again</a>,” Biden said. </p>
<p>If Biden meant simply that he would sign a bill enshrining the right to an abortion, then he can keep his promise. But, as he noted, such a bill is unlikely to be enacted by this current Congress, <a href="https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-breakdown">in which the House majority is Republican</a>. Moreover, if Biden expected such a law to be upheld by this Supreme Court, or even a different set of justices, he could be seriously disappointed.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there is much that Biden’s administration and Congress can do to offset the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2022 <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/19-1392">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a> ruling, which removed federal constitutional protection for the right to get an abortion and sent the regulation of abortion back to the states. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/nrc8g/2915359">As experts</a> on <a href="https://www.law.gwu.edu/alan-b-morrison">constitutional law</a> and <a href="https://www.law.gwu.edu/sonia-m-suter">reproductive health and justice</a>, we are sorting out just what the federal government can do to protect access to abortion.</p>
<p>Most Americans think of the federal government and the president as capable of doing anything that a majority of Congress thinks is appropriate. But that is not true. </p>
<p>The president has various powers under the Constitution, including the authority to issue <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/executive-orders-101-what-are-they-and-how-do-presidents-use-them">executive orders</a>. </p>
<p>That’s what <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/07/08/executive-order-on-protecting-access-to-reproductive-healthcare-services/">Biden did</a> shortly after the Dobbs decision when he issued an executive order that called on different government officials and agencies to promote access to reproductive care, including abortion. </p>
<p>Biden can also have government agencies craft rules that protect abortion rights. The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, has proposed <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/04/12/hhs-proposes-measures-bolster-patient-provider-confidentiality-around-reproductive-health-care.html#:%7E:text=Today%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Department%20of,protected%20health%20information%20(PHI)%20to">a rule to increase privacy protections</a> for reproductive health information, including abortion information. </p>
<p>But Biden has only limited authority to do this: These efforts could be undone by <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/executive-orders-101-what-are-they-and-how-do-presidents-use-them">Congress overriding</a> executive orders – or his successors reversing them – and courts invalidating agency decisions. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582806/original/file-20240319-26-k3xw86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Joe Biden is seen standing at a podium, in front of a large American flag and several people around him, including Vice President Kamala Harris" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582806/original/file-20240319-26-k3xw86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582806/original/file-20240319-26-k3xw86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582806/original/file-20240319-26-k3xw86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582806/original/file-20240319-26-k3xw86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582806/original/file-20240319-26-k3xw86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582806/original/file-20240319-26-k3xw86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582806/original/file-20240319-26-k3xw86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">President Joe Biden speaks during the State of the Union address on March 7, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://mapi.associatedpress.com/v2/items/8a914f2c68444fefb2f27f6cfa4ab597/preview/AP24068158996875.jpg?wm=api&tag=app_id=1,user_id=904438,org_id=101781">Associated Press/Andrew Harnik</a></span>
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<h2>Congress’ hands are partially tied</h2>
<p>Biden specifically said in February 2024 that he needs a Congress that will help him support a “woman’s right to choose.”</p>
<p>Two of us have written <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/congress-roe-law-abortion-alternative.html">about how Congress</a> does not have the authority to override a state’s decision to make abortions unlawful in most circumstances – although we <a href="https://twitter.com/jdmortenson/status/1521580604323737600">recognize that some</a> observers and experts would <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10787">question this conclusion</a>.</p>
<p>Congress has the power to pass laws, but only on a limited list of subjects. While the understanding of Congress’ power has expanded over time, there are still very real limits. </p>
<p>Congress is able to regulate commerce between states, but the Supreme Court has determined that its powers only reach activities that are <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11971">economic in nature</a>. So, the court ruled in 1994 that the federal government could not ban the possession of guns in a “<a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1994/93-1260">school zone</a>,” since there was no direct economic element involved. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582919/original/file-20240319-30-7pp40o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two white boxes say the words 'Mifepristone tablets' and are on a black table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582919/original/file-20240319-30-7pp40o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582919/original/file-20240319-30-7pp40o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582919/original/file-20240319-30-7pp40o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582919/original/file-20240319-30-7pp40o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582919/original/file-20240319-30-7pp40o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582919/original/file-20240319-30-7pp40o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582919/original/file-20240319-30-7pp40o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Packages of Mifepristone tablets are displayed in April 2023 at the family planning clinic in Rockville, Md.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photo-illustration-packages-of-mifepristone-tablets-news-photo/1481950657?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Other options for protecting abortion rights</h2>
<p>The president and the federal government have other ways to make it easier and more affordable to get an abortion. Some of these methods might even be effective in states where there are partial or full bans.</p>
<p>First, Congress could amend existing federal laws to provide economic assistance for abortion. For example, it could repeal the <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12167#:%7E:text=The%20Hyde%20Amendment%2C%20according%20to,are%20not%20obligated%20to%20cover.">Hyde Amendment</a>, which is an annual restriction passed in 1976 that prohibits federal money from being used to fund abortions, except when necessary to save the life of a pregnant person or when a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. </p>
<p>Biden promised to remove the Hyde Amendment in his 2020 campaign but has been unable to do so because of lack of congressional support. But eliminating the Hyde Amendment would have minimal impact in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html">states with abortion bans</a>. </p>
<p>Second, some states with abortion bans, like Idaho and Alabama, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-texas-idaho-alabama-state-lines-trafficking-d314933f3f7db93858561a0c6ad0b188">are threatening to prosecute women</a> who travel to another state to get an abortion. Congress could enact legislation that protects the right to interstate travel for an abortion. Congress could also make it a federal offense for anyone, including state prosecutors, to interfere with that right. </p>
<p>Justice Brett Kavanaugh, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">in his concurring opinion in Dobbs</a>, asserted that if states criminalized interstate travel for people to get an abortion, those laws would fail “based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.” </p>
<p>Since Dobbs, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/idaho-abortion-minors-criminalization-b8fb4b6feb9b520d63f75432a1219588">Idaho has passed a law</a> making it a felony for adults who are not the parent of a pregnant minor to help that minor cross state lines for an abortion. A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/idaho-abortion-trafficking-travel-ban-270a403d7b4a5e99e566433556614728">district court has temporarily stayed</a> this law as unconstitutional. In addition, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/09/texas-abortion-transgender-care-outside-state-borders/#:%7E:text=In%201974%2C%20just%20after%20Roe,they%20travel%20to%20that%20State.%E2%80%9D">four counties and a few cities in Texas</a> have passed so-called “abortion trafficking laws,” which allow individuals to sue people who travel to get abortions out of state and those who help them.</p>
<p>Third, the Food and Drug Administration has approved, and in 2016 and 2021 expanded, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/medication-abortion-could-get-harder-to-obtain-or-easier-theres-a-new-wave-of-post-dobbs-lawsuits-on-abortion-pills-198978">availability of mifepristone</a>, one of the two drugs used for medication abortions. The Supreme Court is <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/12/justices-will-review-lower-court-ruling-on-access-to-abortion-pill/">considering a challenge</a> to some of the FDA’s rules about access to mifepristone and will hear <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/food-and-drug-administration-v-alliance-for-hippocratic-medicine-2/">oral arguments in that case on March 26, 2024</a>. </p>
<p>But even if the FDA prevails, an anti-abortion president could replace the head of this federal agency. The FDA might then rescind the current rules that have <a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information-patients-and-providers/questions-and-answers-mifepristone-medical-termination-pregnancy-through-ten-weeks-gestation">expanded access</a> to mifepristone, including allowing the pill to be used later in pregnancy. </p>
<p>To prevent that from happening, Biden could ask <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12269">Congress to pass a law</a> that would guarantee the same kind of access to mifepristone that the FDA currently allows. </p>
<p>Congress could also ensure that <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-obscure-1800s-law-is-shaping-up-to-be-the-center-of-the-next-abortion-battle-legal-scholars-explain-whats-behind-the-victorian-era-comstock-act-204728">mailing abortion pills is legal</a>. It could do so by repealing a Victorian law called the Comstock Act, which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/08/us/court-decision-invalidating-approval-of-mifepristone.html">some judges</a> have interpreted as prohibiting the mailing of abortion pills, and directly declaring that such acts are legal. </p>
<p>The Department of Justice issued an <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-obscure-1800s-law-is-shaping-up-to-be-the-center-of-the-next-abortion-battle-legal-scholars-explain-whats-behind-the-victorian-era-comstock-act-204728">opinion in 2022</a> that the Comstock Act does not override the FDA rule allowing mifepristone to be delivered by mail. But legislation would make it impossible for a future president to reverse that opinion alone, or reverse that decision without congressional approval. </p>
<h2>Biden’s actions could still matter</h2>
<p>Biden’s attempt to explicitly codify Roe would probably not succeed. </p>
<p>But Biden can recommend that Congress undertake many other legal reforms that are not constitutionally barred, and he could also take some limited actions based on his own authority. These could remove some obstacles to getting an abortion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225619/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While both Congress and the president have extensive legal powers, they cannot easily change the law to protect abortions under federal law.Naomi Cahn, Professor of Law, University of VirginiaAlan Morrison, Professor of public interest and public service law, George Washington UniversitySonia Suter, Professor of law, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254182024-03-14T19:58:07Z2024-03-14T19:58:07ZIn France, abortion rights and hijab bans highlight a double standard on women’s rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581779/original/file-20240313-26-4feh20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C153%2C5348%2C3443&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even though laws on religious symbols are worded neutrally, in practice, they are mostly applied to Muslim women’s attire.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The French parliament recently voted in favour of enshrining the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/03/04/france-enshrines-freedom-to-abortion-in-constitution-in-world-first_6584252_5.html">right to abortion into the country’s constitution</a>. While crowds celebrated outside, the slogan “my body my choice” was projected onto the Eiffel Tower <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/06/france-abortion-rights-emmanuel-macron">in giant letters</a>.</p>
<p>Although concerns about <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/05/france-protects-abortion-guaranteed-freedom-constitution">barriers and access</a> still remain, women in France are now guaranteed the right to an abortion up to 14 weeks into their pregnancy, mirroring Spain but still <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/01/france-expands-abortion-access-two-key-moves">well behind</a> Sweden’s 18 weeks and the 24 weeks allowed in The Netherlands.</p>
<p>The decision comes at a time when women’s reproductive rights elsewhere are under threat. In contrast to the United States Supreme Court’s decision <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">overturning abortion rights</a>, France’s vote to enshrine them into its constitution looks like a feminist dream. </p>
<p>In his triumphant speech, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/world/europe/france-abortion-rights-constitution.html">“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead.”</a> </p>
<p>Yet just last year, Attal, as education minister, banned Muslim girls from wearing <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/french-education-minister-announces-ban-on-islamic-dress-in-schools/">abayas in schools</a>. His message — and France’s — to Muslim girls and women seems to be the opposite.</p>
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<h2>Hijab bans</h2>
<p>France’s double standard on women’s rights is most plainly seen in its treatment of Muslim women and girls. A week after its historic abortion vote, France marks 20 years since the adoption of the <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000417977">March 2004 law</a> that bans students in public schools from wearing conspicuous symbols or clothing that manifest a religious affiliation.</p>
<p>In principle, the 2004 law applies to all students and prohibits them from wearing religious symbols like crosses, kippas (yarmulkes) and hijabs. But in practice, it is a sexist and racist law that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur21/7280/2023/en/">disproportionately targets Muslim girls</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/a9fd3c25-946c-4486-8dd5-5d9d13da4a34">My doctoral research</a> showed how Muslim girls are racially and religiously profiled by school administrators and have been suspended or expelled for wearing hoodies, hats, <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/societe/2013/04/04/la-jupe-et-le-bandeau-lettre-a-sirine_893735/">headbands</a> and <a href="https://www.cairn.info/islamophobie-comment-les-elites-francaises--9782707189462.htm">even long skirts</a>. Last year, they were also <a href="https://www.education.gouv.fr/bo/2023/Hebdo32/MENG2323654N">banned from wearing abayas</a>, which are long garments that are worn over clothing.</p>
<p>In my research, I refer to these bans as “anti-veiling laws” because, although they speak of religious symbols in general, the primary motivation behind these is always Muslim women’s dress. </p>
<p>France’s law led other jurisdictions across Europe and North America to ban Muslim women’s attire in various contexts. <a href="https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/0b300685-1b89-46e2-bcf6-7ae5a77cb62c/policy-brief-restrictions-on-muslim-women%27s-dress-03252022.pdf">A 2022 report</a> from the Open Society Justice Initiative found that out of the 27 European Union member countries, only five have never enacted, or attempted to enact, bans on veiling. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Québec holds the distinction of being the only province in Canada to implement a <a href="https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/l-0.3">ban on religious symbols</a>.</p>
<p>Former Québec Premier Pauline Marois cited the French law as being an <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/395252/pauline-marois-et-jean-marc-ayrault-sont-sur-la-meme-longueur-d-onde?">“inspiration”</a> for her government’s failed <a href="https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-60-40-1.html?appelant=MC">Bill 60</a>, known as the Charter of Québec Values. That bill was a precursor to <a href="https://ccla.org/major-cases-and-reports/bill-21/">Québec’s Bill 21</a>, which bans teachers, judges, prosecutors, police officers and other officials in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols.</p>
<h2>Discrimination against Muslim women</h2>
<p>Even though the laws are worded neutrally, claiming to defend abstract principles like secularism, religious neutrality, gender equality or “<a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-145466%22%5D%7D">living together</a>,” in practice they are <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/behind-the-veil-9781788970846.html">mostly applied to Muslim women’s attire</a>.</p>
<p>Human rights groups like <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur21/7280/2023/en/">Amnesty International</a> and the <a href="https://ccieurope.org/report2023/">Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe</a> have demonstrated that the surveillance, suspension and expulsion of Muslim girls at school have led to a decrease in their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055420000106">educational and employment outcomes</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to <a href="https://ccieurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/report-ccie-2023.pdf">increasing discrimination</a> against them, these bans also violate their right to education without discrimination, a right that is upheld in several international treaties, including the United Nations <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child">Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>.</p>
<p>However, the most insidious aspect of France’s 2004 law is how it has been used to justify even further restrictions on the rights of Muslim women and girls, such as women wearing <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000022911670">face veils or niqabs</a>, mothers wishing to accompany their children on <a href="https://www.education.gouv.fr/circulaire-preparation-rentree-2012?cid_bo=59726">school outings</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230629-top-court-rules-in-favour-of-hijab-ban-in-french-women-s-football">women athletes</a> who <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/france-ensure-muslim-women-and-girls-can-play-sports/">wear hijab</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, Muslim women are routinely told to take off their clothes or to wear less clothing, even in places or contexts where they legally have the right to wear whatever they want, including at <a href="https://doi.org/10.13169/islastudj.4.1.0101">public beaches</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61883529">swimming pools</a>.</p>
<h2>Body sovereignty</h2>
<p>This brings us back to the issue of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. Access to abortion is an important right for women everywhere, but women’s rights extend beyond abortion.</p>
<p>The concept of body sovereignty was developed by Indigenous feminists and activists, and refers to a person’s autonomy over their own body as well as to their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2017.1366179">relationship to land</a>, <a href="https://www.adiosbarbie.com/2016/01/a-critical-conversation-with-sheena-roetman-on-body-sovereignty-and-justice/">belief systems</a> and ways of being that are <a href="https://www.journal.mai.ac.nz/system/files/MAI_Jrnl_2020_V9_2_Gillon_FINAL.pdf">intersectional</a>, <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jgi/vol1/iss1/4">sexually diverse</a>, non-Eurocentric, non-ableist and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783319893506">non-fatist</a>. It includes everything from diet, clothing, sexual activity and beauty ideals to reproductive health and freedom from violence.</p>
<p>Anti-veiling laws discriminate against Muslim women and girls, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.32.1.05">encourage violence against them</a> and undermine the principle of body sovereignty.</p>
<p>Feminists and pro-choice activists everywhere should pause and think about what it means for governments to guarantee abortion rights to women while denying them the more expansive concept of body sovereignty. If feminists and their allies are outraged when theocratic regimes impose religious dress on women, they should be similarly outraged when democratic governments also restrict what women can wear: these are two sides of the same coin. </p>
<p>Both undermine women’s freedom, body sovereignty and self-determination. It is time for feminists everywhere to demand an end to laws that force women to dress one way or another, regardless of where in the world they are enacted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roshan Arah Jahangeer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As France enshrines abortion rights in its constitution, the country’s ban on wearing religious symbols in schools turns 20 years old.Roshan Arah Jahangeer, Postdoctoral Researcher, Memorial University of NewfoundlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2257142024-03-13T14:57:43Z2024-03-13T14:57:43ZAbortion rights are featuring in this year’s European election campaign in a way we’ve not seen before<p>The recent landmark decision in France to inscribe the right to abortion in the constitution serves to protect the law that first legalised abortion in the country in 1975. This law – the so-called Veil law – was championed by Simone Veil, one of France’s most admired and respected political figures, and an icon of the women’s rights movement.</p>
<p>In 1974, Veil, a magistrate who had been asked by French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing to serve as health minister in his government, delivered a momentous <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45MOc6PYoY8">speech</a>. She presented the public health case for the decriminalisation of abortion to the National Assembly, which at the time was composed almost entirely of men. </p>
<p>The speech was met by fierce opposition and hostility, especially by those on the political right. Veil nevertheless managed to convince a majority of the deputies to vote in favour of her proposal. Once approved by the Senate, the law entered into force in 1975. Veil thereby became a symbol of women’s empowerment and emancipation.</p>
<p>Following her political success at national level, Veil stood in the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979. Once elected, the parliament chose her as its president, and she became the first woman to head any of the European institutions.</p>
<h2>An election ahead</h2>
<p>Political parties are now gearing up for the latest round of elections to the European Parliament in June, more than 40 years after Veil first entered the institution. And issues of reproductive rights are on the agenda once again. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white portrait photo of Simone Veil." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581645/original/file-20240313-16-e73bjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Simone Veil, legend of the women’s rights movement and European politics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Veil#/media/File:Simone_Veil_bij_uitreiking_Four_Freedoms_Awards_in_Middelburg,_Bestanddeelnr_933-0124_-_Restoration.jpg">Wikipedia/Anefo photo collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2022, the European parliament felt the need to issue a <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0243_EN.html">resolution</a> strongly condemning backsliding in women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health rights. </p>
<p>This came in response to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which had guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion for 50 years. But it was also a response to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/abortion-right-europe-vary-widely-getting-squeezed/">developments</a> in some EU member states. </p>
<p>The resolution highlighted in particular the de facto ban on abortion that has come into force in Poland in recent years but also mentioned Malta, where abortion is illegal, Slovakia, where access is restricted, Hungary, where procedures are “not available” and Italy, where rights are being threatened. </p>
<p>Importantly, the resolution also calls for the right to abortion to be included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which would mean all women in the European Union would have the right to access reproductive healthcare of this kind, thereby offering them some protection from restrictions in their home nations. </p>
<p>This call was echoed by French president <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240308-france-s-macron-to-seal-abortion-becoming-constitutional-right">Emmanuel Macron</a> during the ceremony marking the new constitutional right to abortion in France.</p>
<p>Yet, the parliamentary resolution masks internal divisions between, and sometimes within, the political groups of the European parliament. As these political groups are launching their campaigns and election manifestos, it is clear that the issue of abortion has become part of the wider political polarisation seen across Europe.</p>
<p>Many far-right parties, which are predicted to <a href="https://ecfr.eu/publication/a-sharp-right-turn-a-forecast-for-the-2024-european-parliament-elections/">make significant gains</a> in the upcoming elections, call for restrictions on abortion rights. The European Conservatives and Reformists, a right-wing group that brings together parties such as Brothers of Italy and Spain’s Vox, says it wants to “<a href="https://ecrgroup.eu/campaign/family_and_life">defend life, from its conception until its natural end.</a>”. </p>
<p>The political parties within the Identity & Democracy group do not share a common position on the issue, but several adopt a restrictive approach. For example, the Alternative for Germany recently <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-parliament-bundestagvotes-to-remove-ban-on-abortion-advertising/">voted against</a> a proposal to ban a law preventing doctors from providing information on abortion procedures in Germany.</p>
<p>The centre-right European People’s Party, the biggest political group in the Parliament, remains <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/abortion-debate-european-parliament-division-hatred/">divided</a> on the issue, but most of its MEPs agree that abortion should remain a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcms.13378">matter of national competence</a>. </p>
<p>Groups on the other side of the political spectrum, meanwhile, are making explicit reference to the need to safeguard and expand reproductive health and rights in their European election manifestos. They include <a href="https://left.eu/mon-corps-mon-choix/">the Left</a> group, <a href="https://www.datocms-assets.com/87481/1708539548-egp_manifesto-2024_courage-to-change.pdf">the Greens</a> and the <a href="https://pes.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024_PES_Manifesto_EN.pdf">Socialist & Democrats</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, the liberal group Renew Europe is pushing for greater alignment on abortion rights across the EU. It it is behind the recently launched <a href="https://www.simoneveilpact.eu/">Simone Veil Pact</a>, which calls for greater pan-European effort on gender equality.</p>
<h2>A new parliamentary term</h2>
<p>Veil considered the European parliament a key institution in the democratic development of the European Community. She saw the right given to Europeans to vote for the parliament as a <a href="https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/174d384d-d5c7-4c02-ad78-b1f6efc9740a/publishable_en.pdf">milestone</a> and a springboard for increased parliamentary involvement in European integration and decision-making. Under her leadership, the European parliament gained greater recognition and transformed into a real political actor.</p>
<p>Veil held the post of president for three years, and she remained a member of the European parliament until 1993. During her three terms as an MEP, she continued to support issues relating to women’s rights.</p>
<p>The arguments once made by Simone Veil, who in 2018 was honoured with a <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20180629-liveblog-france-women-rights-abortion-simone-veil-holocaust-pantheon">burial in the Panthéon</a> (the Parisian mausoleum reserved exclusively for France’s most eminent citizens), are surfacing once again ahead of the hotly contested European parliament elections. </p>
<p>When the 720 newly elected MEPs meet for the next parliamentary term, discussions and debates around abortion and women’s rights are bound to continue. They may well take a different tone and occupy a higher position depending on the outcome of the elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Magdalena Frennhoff Larsén does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Legendary European parliament president Simone Veil fought for women’s reproductive rights in France and in Brussels. Is her legacy about to be re-opened?Magdalena Frennhoff Larsén, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2213892024-01-26T13:21:52Z2024-01-26T13:21:52ZMost state abortion bans have limited exceptions − but it’s hard to understand what they mean<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571261/original/file-20240124-27-dzfjqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women who were denied abortions, despite serious pregnancy complications, appear outside the Texas Supreme Court in November 2023, following arguments in a lawsuit they brought against the state. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/plaintiffs-including-amanda-zurowski-speaks-at-a-press-news-photo/1807598346?adppopup=true">Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than a year after the Supreme Court found there is no <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/19-1392">fundamental right to get an abortion</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html">21 states have laws in effect</a> that ban abortion well before fetal viability, generally allowing it only in the first trimester. </p>
<p>Fourteen of these 21 states have also issued near-total bans on abortion from the point of conception. But it’s not clear when, if ever, an abortion would be permissible under these near-total bans.</p>
<p>Virtually all states, including Arkansas, North Dakota and Oklahoma, for example, allow an <a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/state-indicator/gestational-limit-abortions/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D">abortion when necessary</a> to save the life of the pregnant person. But the laws don’t explain just how close to death the person must be before the abortion can be performed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/a-review-of-exceptions-in-state-abortions-bans-implications-for-the-provision-of-abortion-services">Some states</a>, such as Georgia, Indiana and West Virginia, also include exceptions for health concerns, rape, incest or lethal fetal anomalies. </p>
<p>Most of these exceptions are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/17/opinion/kate-cox-abortion-texas-exceptions.html">vaguely worded</a>, leaving physicians and pregnant patients to navigate <a href="https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/citylimits/sarah-needed-an-abortion-her-doctors-needed-lawyers/article_472a621e-7fdb-11ed-bf8d-0797b6012be2.html">whether a particular abortion</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/16/abortion-miscarriage-ectopic-pregnancy-care/">would be legal</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/nrc8g/2915359">As experts</a> on <a href="https://www.law.gwu.edu/sonia-m-suter">reproductive health and justice</a>, we are trying to untangle just what these different medical exceptions mean. This is an important question for legal experts, but also for doctors and caregivers, as well as people who are pregnant and their families – all trying to make sense of the various bans in effect. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571258/original/file-20240124-17-qkkg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People, some holding posters, march outside of a grey building that says 'Bans off our bodies' in white writing, against a hot pink backdrop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571258/original/file-20240124-17-qkkg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571258/original/file-20240124-17-qkkg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571258/original/file-20240124-17-qkkg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571258/original/file-20240124-17-qkkg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571258/original/file-20240124-17-qkkg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571258/original/file-20240124-17-qkkg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571258/original/file-20240124-17-qkkg3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-abortion activists protest outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington, D.C., on Jan 18, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-and-anti-abortion-protesters-are-facing-off-in-front-of-news-photo/1935914291?adppopup=true">Aaron Schwartz/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Steep penalties, murky legal language</h2>
<p>Because these different state laws use nonmedical language and threaten steep penalties – such as <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/a-year-after-the-supreme-court-overturned-roe-v-wade-trends-in-state-abortion-laws-have-emerged/">life imprisonment</a> – for performing an abortion that violates the statute, some <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/risky-pregnancy-abortion-doctors-consult-lawyers-rcna37651">physicians have been turning to lawyers for guidance</a>. </p>
<p>For example, Tennessee <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/2021/title-39/chapter-15/part-2/section-39-15-213/">has an exception</a> that allows abortions “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.” And West Virginia allows abortions for “nonviable” fetuses, <a href="https://code.wvlegislature.gov/16-2R-2/">defined as those with a “lethal anomaly</a> … incompatible with life outside of the uterus.”</p>
<p>These exceptions are confusing to health care providers, in part because the laws <a href="https://scholarship.shu.edu/shlr/vol53/iss5/2">assume a certainty in medicine that may not exist</a>. The laws also <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/15/us/texas-abortion-ban-emergency-medical-exception/index.html">do not rely on medical terms</a>. </p>
<p>This means that health care providers in states where abortion is banned – apart from these limited exceptions – are reluctant to provide abortions under any circumstances, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-07-29/fearful-of-prosecution-doctors-debate-how-to-treat-pregnant-patients">even in the face of life-threatening conditions</a> or severe <a href="https://jessica.substack.com/p/abortion-exceptions-dont-exist">fetal anomalies</a>. </p>
<p>The rate of abortions in the states where there is a near-total or total ban <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/24/abortion-increase-roe-wade-state-ban">decreased by 100%</a> from April 2022, just before the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/19-1392">Supreme Court overturned</a> the right to an abortion, through June 2023.</p>
<h2>Legal action for answers</h2>
<p>Some health care providers and their patients have sued to find out just when abortions might be permitted. </p>
<p>Courts in different states, from the trial court to the supreme court level, are now being forced to consider these questions and have begun to weigh in with opinions that lead to even more uncertainty. At the heart of this litigation is <a href="https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3550&context=shlr">how to balance doctors’ conflicting obligations</a>
to provide the best medical care, which could include offering an abortion that they fear state bans may prohibit. </p>
<p>And because each state uses its own language to define a ban and its exceptions, one court’s opinion regarding its ban does not dictate how another state’s ban should be interpreted. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571484/original/file-20240125-21-169abh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a black outfit stands at a podium in front of a long row of women who stand looking forward." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571484/original/file-20240125-21-169abh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571484/original/file-20240125-21-169abh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571484/original/file-20240125-21-169abh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571484/original/file-20240125-21-169abh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571484/original/file-20240125-21-169abh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571484/original/file-20240125-21-169abh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571484/original/file-20240125-21-169abh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Center for Reproductive Rights attorney Molly Duane speaks outside the Texas Supreme Court in Austin, joined by the plaintiffs in the organization’s abortion clarification suit against the state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/center-for-reproductive-rights-attorney-molly-duane-news-photo/1807623427?adppopup=true">Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Texas’ abortion ban</h2>
<p>Texas is one of the states that banned nearly all abortions in 2022. Texas law allows an abortion only when there is a “medical emergency” for the pregnant person, defined as a “life-threatening physical condition” related to the pregnancy that “poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a <a href="https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/HS/htm/HS.170A.htm#:%7E:text=Sec.-,170A.,induce%2C%20or%20attempt%20an%20abortion.">major bodily function</a>.”</p>
<p>In March 2023, the advocacy group Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of Texas women and two obstetricians-gynecologists, seeking clarification over when Texas’ ban allows an abortion. </p>
<p><a href="https://reproductiverights.org/zurawski-v-texas-plaintiffs-stories-remarks/">The Texas women</a>, who faced serious pregnancy-related health risks or very low odds of their baby’s survival outside the womb, were denied abortions or told to wait until death was more imminent. Some of the women got abortions outside of Texas, and others gave birth to babies who lived only briefly because of serious fetal health problems.</p>
<p><a href="https://reproductiverights.org/case/zurawski-v-texas-abortion-emergency-exceptions/zurawski-v-texas/">The plaintiffs argued</a> that the law’s confusing language – as well as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/14/podcasts/the-daily/texas-abortion-ban.html?showTranscript=1">threat to physicians</a> of 99 years in jail, $100,000 in fines and a loss of their medical license – led to delays or denials of medical treatment they needed. </p>
<p>In August 2023, a Texas trial court judge blocked enforcement of the state’s abortion ban when “in a physician’s good faith judgment and in consultation with the pregnant person, the pregnant person has an emergent medical <a href="https://statecourtreport.org/sites/default/files/fastcase/additionalPdfs/processed/District%20Court%20-Order%20Granting%20Injunction%20-08.04.2023.pdf">condition requiring abortion care</a>.” This could include medical conditions that make it unsafe to continue the pregnancy or diagnosis of a fetal abnormality that would not allow it to survive after birth. </p>
<p>Texas appealed this decision to the state Supreme Court. The lower court decision is on hold until the Supreme Court issues its final decision; the court has not <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/28/texas-supreme-court-abortion/">said when it would rule</a>.</p>
<p>Because there is still no definitive decision on how to interpret the Texas law, pregnant patients have been left in limbo. </p>
<p>Katie Cox, for example, is a Texas woman who was diagnosed when she was 20 weeks pregnant with a <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2023/12/13/welcome-to-the-pro-life-dystopia/">severe fetal anomaly</a> called trisomy 18. Carrying the pregnancy to term would have threatened her fertility, potentially preventing the mother of two from birthing more children in the future. </p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/14/podcasts/the-daily/texas-abortion-ban.html?showTranscript=1">Cox’s doctor</a> explained it was not an option in Texas to terminate the pregnancy, Cox and her doctor went to court seeking judicial approval for <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/07/texas-emergency-abortion-lawsuit/">an abortion</a>. </p>
<p>Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble granted permission in December 2023, finding that it would be a “miscarriage of justice” to prohibit <a href="https://abc13.com/texas-abortion-ban-attorney-general-ken-paxton-katie-cox-block-ruling/14155514/">Cox from ending her pregnancy</a>. </p>
<p>But days later, the Texas Supreme Court blocked the district court ruling. It <a href="https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1457645/230994pc.pdf">conceded that Cox’s pregnancy was “extremely complicated</a>,” but refused to find that state law permitted the abortion. Cox left the state to get an abortion. </p>
<p>The Texas Supreme Court opinion in December still left many questions unanswered. The court stated that a judicial order was not required to permit a doctor to perform an abortion in the case of a medical emergency. <a href="https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1457645/230994pc.pdf">But it also interpreted the law as setting an objective standard as to whether the exception applied</a>. </p>
<p>That left open the possibility that the state could find an expert witness to challenge the physician’s judgment. </p>
<h2>A thread of uncertainty</h2>
<p>Since 2022, the Center for Reproductive Rights has also brought <a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-abortion-medical-emergencies-idaho-8ca89d7de0c1fa9256dcd27d1847e144#:%7E:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20is%20allowing,ban%2C%20even%20in%20medical%20emergencies&text=WASHINGTON%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20The%20Supreme,while%20a%20legal%20fight%20continues">lawsuits in Idaho</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-tennessee-lawsuit-fd630c5f55f605597d8eaa2800abbcfd#:%7E:text=WHAT%20THE%20LAWSUIT%20SEEKS%20TO,to%20legally%20receive%20an%20abortion">Tennessee</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/women-denied-abortions-file-lawsuits-idaho-tennessee-oklahoma-over-bans-2023-09-12/">and Oklahoma</a>, <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/exceptions-complaints-idaho-tennessee-oklahoma/">seeking clarity</a> on medical emergency exceptions in the states’ abortion bans.</p>
<p>The lawsuit’s underlying claim is that uncertainty about the scope of the exceptions has, according to the Idaho complaint, “sown confusion, fear and chaos among the medical community, resulting in grave harms to pregnant patients whose health and safety hang in the <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/ID-Complaint-Final-9-12.pdf">balance across the state</a>.” </p>
<p>What all of these cases and stories show is that even when abortion bans claim to allow exceptions based on medical judgment, physicians – and their patients – <a href="https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3550&context=shlr">know their decisions</a> can be second-guessed and challenged in court.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women in Texas and in other states with abortion bans are suing, asking for clarification on when medical exceptions could actually be granted.Naomi Cahn, Professor of Law, University of VirginiaSonia Suter, Professor of law, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191622024-01-22T13:31:34Z2024-01-22T13:31:34ZA surprising history of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, once a leader in expanding civil rights and now a leader in limiting government power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569907/original/file-20240117-21-7w73t0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C12%2C4235%2C2817&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AbortionRestrictionsTexas/8ae444ca5e2540708d5a395dd9ee0264/photo?Query=U.S.%20Court%20of%20Appeals%20for%20the%205th%20Circuit&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=979&digitizationType=Digitized&currentItemNo=1&vs=true&vs=true">AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has earned a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/26/5th-circuit-supreme-court-reversals-decisions/">reputation for strikingly conservative rulings</a>. One of its recent decisions could put the <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-50826-CV0.pdf">Consumer Financial Protection Bureau out of business</a>, another could <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/secs-in-house-enforcement-powers-risk-us-supreme-court-case-2023-11-28/">hamstring the ability of federal agencies</a> to enforce regulations, and a third could <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.213145/gov.uscourts.ca5.213145.183.2_1.pdf">effectively outlaw medication abortions</a>. </p>
<p>The 5th Circuit today looks very different than it did half a century ago, when it was on the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/16/us/john-minor-wisdom-appeals-court-judge-who-helped-to-end-segregation-dies.html">front lines of enforcing civil rights</a>. The 5th Circuit currently handles cases in three states: Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/about-the-court/circuit-history/brief-history">Until 1982, it also covered Alabama, Georgia and Florida</a> – the entire Deep South during the civil rights era.</p>
<p>Then as now, the 5th Circuit has had a complicated relationship with a Supreme Court that was ideologically sympathetic with the lower court. At times, the 5th Circuit was willing to go further than the Supreme Court on some issues. But the high court hesitated to rebuke the 5th Circuit.</p>
<p>Understanding the 5th Circuit’s work therefore can provide important insights into broader legal trends in the U.S.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569923/original/file-20240117-29-868d4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Orange boxes of a drug called Mifepristone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569923/original/file-20240117-29-868d4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569923/original/file-20240117-29-868d4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569923/original/file-20240117-29-868d4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569923/original/file-20240117-29-868d4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569923/original/file-20240117-29-868d4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569923/original/file-20240117-29-868d4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569923/original/file-20240117-29-868d4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">If a 5th Circuit decision on the availability of the abortion drug mifepristone is upheld by the Supreme Court, it could severely curtail the ability to get an abortion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photo-illustration-packages-of-mifepristone-tablets-news-photo/1481957802?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Undercutting federal agency power</h2>
<p>The Supreme Court can handle only a limited number of cases each year, so it tries to establish general principles that lower courts can apply. </p>
<p>Federal appellate courts oversee the work of federal district courts that apply those general principles. Because the devil is in the details, an appellate court can interpret those principles broadly or narrowly, and in so doing can support or undermine Supreme Court rulings on a day-to-day basis.</p>
<p>Several recent 5th Circuit decisions threaten to undercut the power of federal agencies. </p>
<p>One notable example is the <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-10362-CV1.pdf">case of the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone</a>. The 5th Circuit in August 2023 rejected the Food and Drug Administration’s relaxation of the conditions under which that drug can be used. That decision, if upheld by the Supreme Court, could severely curtail the ability of a woman to get an abortion. It could also portend widespread challenges to FDA decisions about the safety and effectiveness of drugs and medical devices.</p>
<p>The 5th Circuit suggested an alternative basis for restricting access to mifepristone. It expressed some sympathy for the plaintiffs’ broad reading of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/us/comstock-act-1978-abortion-pill.html">1873 Comstock Act</a>, an anti-vice law, as forbidding the shipment of any “<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-obscure-1800s-law-is-shaping-up-to-be-the-center-of-the-next-abortion-battle-legal-scholars-explain-whats-behind-the-victorian-era-comstock-act-204728">drug, medicine, article, or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion</a>.” But that interpretation might effectively outlaw all abortions, because not only pills but virtually everything used in surgical abortions gets shipped across state lines. </p>
<p>Other 5th Circuit rulings that went against the federal government are also pending before the Supreme Court this term. </p>
<p>Among those, one notable case could eviscerate the ability of agencies to enforce regulatory laws through traditional in-house hearings. The 5th Circuit ruled that <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/20/20-61007-CV0.pdf">the Securities and Exchange Commission must use jury trials in federal court</a> instead of those in-house hearings, that the statute giving the SEC discretion about using agency hearings was unconstitutional, and that the administrative law judges who preside at agency hearings were unlawfully appointed. That ruling, if it stands, could hamstring numerous agencies that enforce federal regulations via in-house hearings.</p>
<p>In a second case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, the 5th Circuit ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10891">funding mechanism was unconstitutional</a>, because this agency gets its money from the Federal Reserve rather than from Congress.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/us/supreme-court-sec-tribunals.html?searchResultPosition=1">That ruling could invalidate</a> not only the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but also the Federal Reserve itself and the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-448/266373/20230508190055738_22-448tsUnitedStates.pdf">entire Social Security program, including Medicare</a>, which also do not receive their funding from Congress.</p>
<p>The 5th Circuit has also expansively interpreted gun rights in cases that call many firearms regulations into question, rejecting a law that bars persons <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-11001-CR2.pdf">subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms</a> and <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-10718-CV0.pdf">invalidating federal regulation of ghost guns</a>. </p>
<p>These rulings are part of a striking pattern of restricting federal authority that makes the 5th Circuit distinctive among federal appeals courts across the nation. </p>
<p>But this isn’t the first time the 5th Circuit has stood out.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569846/original/file-20240117-17-509uce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of well-dressed people on the sidewalk outside an office building, with picketers in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569846/original/file-20240117-17-509uce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569846/original/file-20240117-17-509uce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569846/original/file-20240117-17-509uce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569846/original/file-20240117-17-509uce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569846/original/file-20240117-17-509uce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569846/original/file-20240117-17-509uce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569846/original/file-20240117-17-509uce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Meredith, center, and attorney Constance Motley, right, on Sept. 28, 1962, outside the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which that day ordered Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett to facilitate Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi or face arrest and fine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/james-meredith-and-his-attorney-constance-motley-were-news-photo/515030524?adppopup=true">Bettman/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Furthering desegregation</h2>
<p>In the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 ruling in <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/brown-v-board-of-education">Brown v. Board of Education</a>, which barred racial segregation in public schools, the old 5th Circuit compiled a courageous record in promoting civil rights.</p>
<p>The 5th Circuit judges wrote or upheld rulings that required the desegregation of <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2239&context=jour_mlr">public schools, universities and other public facilities</a> throughout the Deep South. </p>
<p>Those judges invalidated the segregation ordinance that was a key target of the 1955-56 <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/montgomery-bus-boycott.htm">Montgomery bus boycott</a>, which propelled Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to prominence and helped to galvanize the Civil Rights Movement. The 5th Circuit even held the governor and lieutenant governor of Mississippi in <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/346/99/445527/">contempt of court for defying desegregation orders</a> in 1962.</p>
<p>The current 5th Circuit, in short, looks very different from its predecessor. That is no small irony, as the 5th Circuit sits in a courthouse named for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/16/us/john-minor-wisdom-appeals-court-judge-who-helped-to-end-segregation-dies.html">John Minor Wisdom</a>, one of the heroic judges of the civil rights era.</p>
<h2>Limiting federal power</h2>
<p>But it’s not only the 5th Circuit that has changed. So has the Supreme Court, which is now dominated by conservative justices.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court that decided Brown v. Board of Education wanted public schools desegregated, but <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/349us294">the justices left implementation to federal district judges</a>, whose knowledge of local circumstances could make the process go more smoothly. That approach too often encouraged foot-dragging and massive resistance. Still, the 5th Circuit’s persistence furthered the Supreme Court’s ultimate goal of breaking down segregation.</p>
<p>Today’s Supreme Court has very different priorities. Now, the justices are more interested in limiting federal power than in promoting civil rights. </p>
<p>The current court has <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96">undermined the Voting Rights Act</a>, largely <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf">eliminated affirmative action</a> and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">repudiated abortion rights</a>. </p>
<p>Through its <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12077">“major questions” doctrine</a>, which requires clear congressional authorization for agencies to address problems that have a significant economic impact, the court has made it harder for agencies to undertake new initiatives.</p>
<p>The 5th Circuit these days is still promoting larger Supreme Court goals. Sometimes the 5th Circuit has gotten ahead of the justices, which might explain why the Supreme Court has reversed or limited some of the appellate court’s decisions and might do so again this year.</p>
<p>Then, as now, the 5th Circuit has had a symbiotic relationship with the Supreme Court. This term’s rulings will further clarify the workings of that relationship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Entin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A court long known for its landmark decisions expanding civil rights is now known for highly conservative rulings reining in government power.Jonathan Entin, Professor Emeritus of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2172492023-11-09T18:48:39Z2023-11-09T18:48:39ZAbortion rights victories show this issue is unlikely to fade in 2024 elections − 3 things to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558413/original/file-20231108-17-safd3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abortion rights supporters celebrate Issue 1 passing in Ohio on Nov. 7, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abortion-rights-supporters-celebrate-winning-the-referendum-news-photo/1769771636?adppopup=true">Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Abortion rights advocates <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1211429268/abortion-rights-2023-election-ohio-virginia-kentucky">won major victories</a> in several state elections on Nov. 7, 2023, signaling that abortion laws are likely to continue to play an important role in the 2024 elections. </p>
<p>In Ohio, the only state where abortion was directly on the ballot, more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/07/abortion-ohio-kentucky-virginia-elecitons/">56% of voters in the conservative-leaning</a> state approved a measure called Issue 1. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ohio-abortion-amendment-election-2023-fe3e06747b616507d8ca21ea26485270">constitutional amendment protects people’s right</a> to <a href="https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/getattachment/cf27c10f-b153-4731-ae9e-e3555a326ed9/The-Right-to-Reproductive-Freedom-with-Protections-for-Health-and-Safety.aspx">have an abortion</a> in Ohio, as well as to get contraception and receive treatment for fertility issues and miscarriages.</p>
<p>Virginia Democrats, who campaigned on preserving abortion rights, maintained control of the state Senate and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-legislature-election-2023-79f9337731c25decc83b83eeb4d3e00e">took control of Virginia’s House of Delegates</a> from Republicans. While <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?231+sum+SB1483">abortion is legal</a> in Virginia until the 26th week of pregnancy, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has said he wanted the legislature to enact <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/08/virginia-senate-house-election-results-2023/">a ban on abortion</a> after 15 weeks of pregnancy. </p>
<p>And in Kentucky, Gov. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/07/kentucky-governor-election-results-2023/">Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won reelection</a>. During his campaign, Beshear promised to protect abortion rights and highlighted Republican opponent Daniel Cameron’s support for Kentucky’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-first-nationwide-election-since-roe-was-overturned-voters-opt-to-protect-abortion-access-194140">near-total ban on abortion</a>. </p>
<p>We are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CcAfO1UAAAAJ&hl=en">scholars of law,</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4bgaJCQAAAAJ&hl=en">gender and health</a> and co-direct Boston University’s Program on Reproductive Justice.</p>
<p>We wrote last year that new constitutional amendments protecting a right to abortion in states usually considered “red,” like Kansas, <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-first-nationwide-election-since-roe-was-overturned-voters-opt-to-protect-abortion-access-194140">were not flukes</a>. Rather, such wins, which have happened in <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/2023_and_2024_abortion-related_ballot_measures">six other states</a> since 2022, affirm a broader trend. The majority of U.S. voters support laws protecting access to abortion and other reproductive care. </p>
<p>Here are three important things to know about the election results.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman closes her eyes and appears to be crying, surrounded by other people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abortion rights supporters in Columbus, Ohio, celebrate winning the right to enshrine abortion in the state’s constitution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abortion-rights-supporters-celebrate-winning-the-referendum-news-photo/1769779581?adppopup=true">Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Votes amending state constitutions are key to protecting abortion rights</h2>
<p>Ohio voted for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and in 2020. In recent years, it has been considered a toss-up state that is turning “red.” </p>
<p>In the days leading up to the 2023 election, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/11/conservatives-ohio-abortion-referendums-00120837">some conservative commentators observed</a> that “anti-abortion groups are banking on Ohio to end the movement’s run of state-level losses and create a blueprint for battles in 2024 and beyond.”</p>
<p>Instead, most Democratic and independent voters, and some Republican voters, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/exit-poll-results-from-ohio-issue-1-ballot-measure-on-abortion-rights/ar-AA1jyKvR">cast their ballots in favor of Issue 1,</a> rejecting Ohio’s law that bans abortion after six weeks.</p>
<p>This followed on the heels of a recent high-profile case in which a 10-year-old Ohio girl had to travel to Indiana to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/indiana-doctor-gave-10-year-old-girl-abortion-disciplinary-hearing-rcna86214">have an abortion after she was raped</a> and could not have the procedure in Ohio. Notably, physicians <a href="https://twitter.com/OURR2023/status/1719345494130885114?s=20">vocally opposed</a> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-hgtRAaGszSvdZy7krZ_FZrMKSgZqHSg/view">Ohio’s restrictive laws</a>.</p>
<p>This new constitutional amendment means that <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/07/02/roe-v-wade-abortion-supreme-court-ohio-dewine-heartbeat-bill/7767433001/">Ohio’s 2019 law</a> that prohibited abortion as soon as fetal cardiac activity could be detected – as early as six weeks into pregnancy – will not be allowed to take effect. A lower state court stopped enforcement of the six-week ban, but the case was making its way to the Ohio Supreme Court, whose seven members are mostly Republicans that have publicly <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1209092670/2023-results-key-ohio-elections">opposed abortion rights</a>.</p>
<p>Now, the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature <a href="https://www.ohiosos.gov/legislation-and-ballot-issues/putting-an-issue-on-the-ballot/citizen-initiated-constitutional-amendment/">does not have the power</a> to amend or stop the new constitutional amendment or to enforce the six-week ban. </p>
<p>Lawmakers may still campaign to repeal Issue 1, but this change would require voters to first approve a different ballot initiative.</p>
<p>While state constitutions are amended much more frequently than the U.S. Constitution, a majority of voters in Ohio showed they support abortion rights, so another ballot measure seems unlikely. </p>
<h2>2. Reframing abortion restrictions does not fool voters</h2>
<p>In Virginia, Democratic candidates campaigned on preserving abortion rights, while Republican candidates <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-republicans-release-dueling-abortion-ads-high-stakes/story?id=103598015">charged Democrats</a> with being obsessed with abortion. </p>
<p>Some Republican candidates also denied that they supported an abortion ban. Instead, they attempted to describe Youngkin’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/us/politics/abortion-ohio-kentucky-virginia-election.html">proposed 15-week ban</a> as “legislation that reflects compassionate common sense.”</p>
<p>The election results suggest that a majority of Virginia voters effectively rejected this proposed ban on abortion after 15 weeks.</p>
<p>Instead, they elected Democratic candidates who pledged to protect abortion rights in the one Southern state that had not enacted new <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/11/08/abortion-rights-victories-continue-here-are-all-the-wins-in-major-elections-since-the-supreme-court-overturned-roe/?sh=5825d21026ad">restrictive abortion laws</a> since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.</p>
<p>With Democrats controlling both legislative chambers in Virginia, new bills will stall, and the legislative majority can counter other restrictive measures that are proposed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Andy Beshear stands in a dark blue suit at a podium that has his name on it, surrounded by three women on a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who campaigned on abortion rights, delivered his victory speech on Nov. 7, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kentucky-incumbent-democratic-gov-andy-beshear-is-joined-by-news-photo/1781193061?adppopup=true">Stephen Cohen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>3. Abortion rights matter up and down the ballot</h2>
<p>Beshear placed abortion at the center of his campaign for governor in Kentucky, even though the state has a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-kentucky-governor-campaign-ec767bf7802852d48ea150b7118fc90c">near-total ban</a> on all abortions and does not have any exceptions for cases of incest or rape. </p>
<p>His win, as well as the <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-supreme-court-election-results-2023-20231107.html">Pennsylvania Supreme Court election</a> that resulted in one more Democrat joining the court and creating a majority, suggests that highlighting abortion rights in election campaigns can be an <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-primary-governors-race-election-2023-e8df45cd3978ce5a1691ba447c84bafc">effective way to draw in voters</a>. </p>
<p>While Kentucky voters said the economy is a top issue for them, they have also said <a href="https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/election/article281536793.html">abortion and other basic rights </a> are important, too. </p>
<p>Beshear’s campaign <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ_qeTQz_Es">ran an unusual advertisement</a> featuring Hadley Duvall, a Kentucky resident who was raped by her stepfather at age 12. She became pregnant but later miscarried. Duvall, now 20 years old, appeared in the television advertisement and challenged Cameron’s <a href="https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SCOKY-Opinion-Feb-16-2023.pdf">support for Kentucky’s law</a>, which allows an abortion only in order to save the life of a pregnant woman – while instructing doctors to try to save the fetus, too.</p>
<p>The ad <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/northern-ky/2023/10/05/kentucky-abortion-debate-hadley-duvall-commercial-daniel-cameron-andy-beshear/71077318007/">resonated with voters</a>, even in a state that now <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/04/14/kentucky-abortion-clinics-stop-provider-law-ban">has no abortion clinics</a>.</p>
<p>Beshear’s reelection shows that politicians can effectively push for laws that walk back from near-total abortion bans, such as making exceptions in cases of rape or incest. In 2022, Kentucky voters already <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/kentucky-voters-reject-constitutional-amendment-on-abortion">rejected a state constitutional amendment</a> that would have prevented recognizing a right to abortion in the state. </p>
<p>These different state elections point in one clear direction.</p>
<p>Abortion <a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/press-release/abortion-access-rises-as-a-voting-issue-and-motivator-especially-among-democrats-and-reproductive-age-women-but-inflation-continues-to-dominate-as-americans-worry-about-bills/">increasingly matters to voters</a>. And most voters do not want laws <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion.aspx">severely restricting abortion</a> and other kinds of reproductive health care. </p>
<p>The 2023 election outcomes also suggest that Democratic candidates can effectively use abortion as a campaign issue. This will be critical for the general elections in 2024.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new constitutional amendment to protect the right to abortion in Ohio − as well as other wins for Democrats − shows the importance of ballot initiatives and focusing on abortion in elections.Nicole Huberfeld, Professor of Health Law and Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLinda C. McClain, Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2131792023-09-19T16:20:00Z2023-09-19T16:20:00ZMexican court ruling upholding women’s right to abortion shows global trend better than US Roe v Wade decision<p>It may surprise you to learn that, over the past 30 years, no fewer than <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/maps/worlds-abortion-laws/">60 countries</a> have liberalised their abortion laws while <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/maps/worlds-abortion-laws/">only four</a> have rolled back abortion rights. The United States is, of course, one of the latter group that has recently restricted women’s access to abortion. </p>
<p>Because the US looms so large in international news coverage of abortion, casual observers often assume that anti-abortion reforms in the US signal a broader global trend or will trigger a domino effect of abortion restrictions. But this view is misguided. It’s important to explore why this is. </p>
<p>In order to understand global abortion trends, we should look across America’s southern border to Mexico. On September 7, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexicos-supreme-court-upholds-abortion-rights-nationwide-paving-way-federal-2023-09-06/">a landmark decision</a> by Mexico’s supreme court found that laws prohibiting abortion were unconstitutional violations of women’s rights. The decision lays the foundation for full decriminalisation of abortion in Mexico – but will have to be enacted in the legislature before it will be the law of the land. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Mexico’s trajectory is more representative of what is happening across the globe than the US <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-supreme-court-decision-on-abortion-creates-patchwork-of-rights-based-on-where-you-live-186319">supreme court decision of 2022</a> that overturned the constitutional abortion right of Roe v Wade. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-supreme-court-decision-on-abortion-creates-patchwork-of-rights-based-on-where-you-live-186319">US Supreme Court decision on abortion creates 'patchwork of rights' based on where you live</a>
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<p>Progress on abortion rights is visible <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/maps/worlds-abortion-laws/">across the world</a>. Mexico is part of a “green wave” across Latin America that has also achieved reforms in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-64784660">Argentina</a> and <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly/article/122/2/397/343181/Abortion-Reform-in-Colombia-From-Total-Prohibition">Colombia</a>. But progress is not limited to Latin America. In 2018, Irish voters <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/ireland-votes-to-remove-constitutional-ban-on-abortion-by-resounding-two-thirds-majority-1.3510068">overwhelmingly supported</a> a measure to remove a constitutional abortion ban. </p>
<p>Within the space of two years (2020-2022), Thailand moved from a criminal ban on abortion to <a href="https://time.com/6225758/thailand-abortion-access/">legal abortion up to 20 weeks</a>. In 2021, Benin adopted one of Africa’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/feb/28/benin-africa-liberal-abortion-laws-women-still-dying#:%7E:text=Abortions%20can%20be%20carried%20out,most%20liberal%20laws%20in%20Africa.">most progressive abortion laws</a>, allowing for abortion on a range of grounds up to 12 weeks. India’s supreme court <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10321178/#">expanded abortion rights in 2022</a>, ruling that all Indian women must have the right to safe and legal abortion regardless of their marital status. </p>
<p>So countries such as the USA, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/14/poland-abortion-witch-hunt-targets-women-doctors">Poland</a>, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/el-salvador-women-abortion-obstetric-problems-prison-fight/">El Salvador</a>, and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/07/31/nicaragua-abortion-ban-threatens-health-and-lives">Nicaragua</a> – the four to roll back abortion rights in recent years – are global outliers. </p>
<h2>Building support for women’s right to choose</h2>
<p>How have these progressive reforms come about? Abortion advocates have achieved successes through engaging with political processes. Argentine activists built a broad-based social movement and multi-party coalition in the legislature to <a href="https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2023/03/03/decriminalizing-abortion-in-argentina-8-takeaways-from-the-inflection-point-of-legalization/">legalise abortion in 2020</a>. In Colombia and Mexico, activists used creative legal strategies to achieve change, bringing strategic litigation and establishing themselves as legal experts. </p>
<p>After Mexico’s supreme court struck down a criminal abortion law at the state level in 2021, ruling that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/7/mexico-supreme-court-says-criminalising-abortion-unconstitutional">criminalising abortion was unconstitutional</a>, NGOs launched a legal campaign to expand that decision nationwide. In last week’s ruling, Mexican courts ruled that abortion <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/7/mexican-supreme-court-decriminalises-abortion-on-federal-level#">should be removed from the federal penal code</a>. </p>
<p>In Colombia, a 2006 court ruling limited legal abortion to a few very narrow grounds. Feminist activists there mobilised to develop and disseminate <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5473042/">progressive interpretations</a> of the law, working with doctors to ensure they could provide abortions while feeling protected from prosecution. In 2022, Colombia’s supreme court decriminalised abortion up to 24 weeks. A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/mar/24/historic-moment-as-el-salvador-abortion-case-fuels-hopes-for-expanded-access-across-latin-america#:%7E:text=In%20El%20Salvador%2C%20abortion%20is,to%2050%2Dyear%20prison%20sentence">pending case</a> before the Inter-american Court of Human Rights holds out the promise of progress for abortion rights in El Saldavor. </p>
<p>When social movements achieve change in political institutions, they are often capitalising on years of on-the-ground campaigning to shift public opinion on abortion. Latin American activists term this process “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-10405133">social decriminalisation</a>”. Even where criminal anti-abortion laws persist, its social status can change. </p>
<p>Reducing abortion stigma, normalising abortion as a part of reproductive life and mobilising the public against anti-abortion prosecutions are all part of this toolkit. </p>
<p>When public attitudes shift, anti-abortion laws can lose public legitimacy and political elites can find themselves out of step with public opinion. Ireland’s 2018 <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44256152">abortion referendum</a> showed us this dynamic: although years of opinion polls had consistently showed the constitutional abortion ban was unpopular, Irish politicians sought to avoid the issue. But in 2017, a <a href="https://2016-2018.citizensassembly.ie/en/The-Eighth-Amendment-of-the-Constitution/Final-Report-on-the-Eighth-Amendment-of-the-Constitution/">Citizens Assembly</a> was held on the issue which showed that the public urgently wanted reform. When the abortion ban was put to referendum in 2018, two-thirds of Irish voters supported legal abortion. </p>
<p>Growing availability of self-managed abortion is also an important factor in the global trend towards abortion reform. Self-managed abortion with pills means that safe abortion is easier to access outside of clinical settings and in restrictive contexts. </p>
<p>But self-managed abortion also highlights the political dilemma that governments face when they seek to enforce restrictive abortion laws. If abortion is as easy as taking a few pills that can be bought online, people will self-manage abortions regardless of the laws where they live. Efforts to prosecute them for doing so can provoke a backlash and highlight the illegitimacy of abortion bans. </p>
<p>Campaigners in Northern Ireland capitalised on changing public attitudes, as well as an inquiry by a <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2018/02/uk-violates-womens-rights-northern-ireland-unduly-restricting-access">human rights treaty body</a>, to secure a moratorium on prosecution of self-managed abortion. Abortion has been decriminalised there since 2019. </p>
<p>Abortion rights rollbacks in the US have understandably provoked outrage. Since Roe v Wade was overturned, American states have passed anti-abortion laws that are <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/09/1187378801/texas-abortion-law-trial-reproductive-rights">cruel and dehumanising</a>. These anti-abortion laws disproportionately affect <a href="https://www.ifwhenhow.org/resources/self-care-criminalized-preliminary-findings/">the most marginalised</a> and are sure to widen gaps in an already deeply unequal society. </p>
<p>But the American story is an outlier. At a global scale, the trajectory we see on abortion rights is one of slow but continuous progress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213179/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sydney Calkin receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust and UKRI. She is a volunteer with the Abortion Support Network (UK). </span></em></p>The US is one of just four countries that have rolled back women’s abortion rights in recent years.Sydney Calkin, Reader in Geography, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2067062023-09-01T12:42:46Z2023-09-01T12:42:46ZWhite men have controlled women’s reproductive rights throughout American history – the post-Dobbs era is no different<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545354/original/file-20230829-23-mvx2g4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5964%2C3952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat from Missouri, after participating in an abortion rights sit-in on July 19, 2022, in Washington.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-cori-bush-leaves-a-processing-area-after-being-arrested-news-photo/1409761529?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than a year after the Supreme Court ended federal protection for abortion rights in the United States, disagreements over abortion bans continue to reverberate around the country. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_brdDBHOT5E">Candidates sparred over the idea of a federal abortion ban</a> during the Aug. 23, 2023, Republican presidential debate. And abortion is likely to figure prominently in the November 2023 <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/27/pennsylvania-supreme-court-abortion-00113074">contest for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court</a>.</p>
<p>When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/19-1392">Roe v. Wade</a> in June 2022, removing women’s federal constitutional right to get abortions and giving states the power to pass laws about the legality of the procedure, the 6-3 vote was by a four white men, one Black man and a white woman majority.</p>
<p>Since that decision – <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a> – more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2023/jun/22/abortion-ban-politicians-who-voted-for-restrictions-who-are-they-men-women">1,500 state legislators, who are overwhelmingly white men</a>, have voted for full or partial abortion bans. </p>
<p>This is not the first period in U.S. history when white men have exercised control over women’s right to bear – or not bear – children, including during slavery. Then, it was a matter of numbers. The more people they enslaved, the more money white male enslavers could earn either from <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist">selling the enslaved or from the forced labor</a> of the enslaved. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.430">White men controlled people’s reproductive rights during the 20th century</a>, too, with the <a href="https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-and-Scientific-Racism">American eugenics movement</a>. </p>
<p>From the late 1800s until the 2000s, white proponents of eugenics – the selective breeding of people – tried to determine who was fit or unfit to have children. While the American eugenics movement affected people of other races and ethnic backgrounds, as well as men, it was particularly harmful to Black women who, data from 1950 to 1966 shows, were sterilized at “<a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">three times the rate of white women and more than 12 times the rate of white men</a>.” </p>
<p>During both periods, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/heq.2017.0045">Black women and their health bore the brunt of the consequences</a> of white men’s control.</p>
<p>As a researcher who specializes in the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=566DVVQAAAAJ&hl=en">history of race and racism in the U.S.</a>, I study historical issues related to race, gender and social justice.</p>
<h2>Enslaved women forced to reproduce</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45129363">African midwives</a>, imported and enslaved as early as the 1600s, attended to the birthing needs of the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674008526">enslaved and enslavers</a> until the beginning of the 19th century.</p>
<p>But, after 1808, enslavers in the United States <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/slave-trade.html">could no longer legally import</a> enslaved people. With this shift, enslavers stepped up the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_American_Slave_Coast/iwCKCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=slave+masters+forced+breeding+of+slaves+1808&pg=PT11&printsec=frontcover">forced breeding of enslaved women</a>. White men raped the Black women and <a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/hidden-voices/enslaved-women-and-slaveholder/sexual-violence">girls they enslaved</a>, and then enslaved the children born from those rapes. White men also <a href="https://notchesblog.com/2020/10/27/the-rape-of-rufus-sexual-violence-against-enslaved-men/">forced the Black women and Black men they enslaved to have sex </a> with one another to generate more babies, who would be born into slavery.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/736-how-capitalism-underdeveloped-black-america">This was a systemic way </a> of ensuring enslaved women <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/155575/killing-the-black-body-by-dorothy-roberts/">bore more children, which would increase profits</a> for their enslavers. </p>
<p>Because <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/More_Than_Chattel/td2yIa7X6H4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=midwives">the Black midwives and enslaved women often were blamed for or suspected</a> of using birth control and abortions to resist forced pregnancy and the enslavement of their offspring, enslavers turned increasingly away from midwives and to <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Birthing_a_Slave/ZussEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover">white male doctors</a> to figure out why nearly half of enslaved infants were stillborn or died within their first year of life and why so many enslaved women were infertile. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305243">These doctors also helped with difficult births</a>. </p>
<p>In the two decades after 1810, the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716878/">population growth rate of the enslaved averaged about 30%</a>, despite the ban on slave importation. This was just under the 1800 to 1809 average of 31.6% which was a century high. </p>
<p>In the 1800s, as the slave population increased, <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist">profits in cotton did too</a>. And after the legal importation of slaves ended, the <a href="https://ir.vanderbilt.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1803/15814/vu06-w24.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">value of Black women of childbearing age increased</a> significantly. The forced breeding of these enslaved women was <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol7/iss1/4">linked to the profitability of southern economies</a>. </p>
<h2>Eugenics and control over women’s bodies</h2>
<p>Eugenicists believed that <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">increased breeding by white people</a>, whom they assumed had high IQs, would benefit American society. But people who did not embody their idea of racial perfection, such as Black people, Native Americans, certain immigrants, poor white people and people with disabilities, should be sterilized – typically via <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/fit-to-be-tied/9780813578910">tubal ligation and vasectomy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black woman, surrounded by large plants, sits with both hands resting on her crossed legs as she stares ahead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545356/original/file-20230829-17-nfjc7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elaine Riddick, pictured at her home in Marietta, Ga., on July 15, 2022, was sterilized without her consent when she was 14, in North Carolina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/elaine-riddick-at-her-home-in-marietta-georgia-on-july-15-news-photo/1242045819?adppopup=true">Tami Chappell for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this <a href="https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-and-Scientific-Racism">debunked pseudo-science</a>, eugenicists often <a href="https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1270&context=law-review">used intelligence tests</a> to determine who was fit or unfit to reproduce and to predict who would commit crimes, end up in poverty or have children who were mentally ill or intellectually disabled. And they worked to incorporate their ideas into state laws. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1098360021025909">Thirty-two states</a>, between 1907 and 1937, enacted forced sterilization mandates to prevent births by people eugenicists considered socially inadequate. </p>
<p>State-mandated procedures resulted in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">coerced sterilization of women</a>, particularly <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bioe.12977">African American, Native American and Hispanic American women</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/gyn.2021.0102">those from Southern and Eastern Europe</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/desegregation">Beginning in 1948</a> with President Harry Truman’s executive order to integrate the military, which extended to other areas, including education, employment and commerce, <a href="https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilization-policies-in-the-us-targeted-minorities-and-those-with-disabilities-and-lasted-into-the-21st-century-143144">sterilization rates for Black women increased</a>. For example, in North Carolina, which had the country’s third-highest sterilization rate, far more women than men were forcibly sterilized. And in the 1960s, <a href="https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BreedingOutVol15No1-1.pdf">Black women in the state made up 65% of the women sterilized</a>, while only making up 25% of the population. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="With people standing around her, a woman wearing a shirt that reads, " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545359/original/file-20230829-23-1c4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abortion-rights activists counter-demonstrate as anti-abortion demonstrators gather for a rally in Federal Building Plaza on June 24, 2023, in Chicago to mark the first anniversary of the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abortion-rights-activists-counter-demonstrate-as-anti-news-photo/1501196070?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/11/04/americas-forgotten-history-of-forced-sterilization/">Between 1930 and 1970</a>, close to 33% of the women in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, were forcibly sterilized. In California, between 1997 and 2003, 1,400 female inmates, <a href="https://www.insider.com/inside-forced-sterilizations-california-womens-prisons-documentary-2020-11">mostly Black, were forcibly sterilized</a>. </p>
<h2>The post-Dobbs era</h2>
<p>White nationalists and some right-wing politicians in the U.S. see the nation’s demographic changes as dangerous. The Census Bureau <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.pdf">projects that in the 2040s</a>, non-Hispanic white people will no longer make up a majority of the U.S. population. The nation’s racial and ethnic makeup will then be what some call “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/opinion/us-census-majority-minority.html">majority-minority</a>.” Those projections scare racists, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-twisted-logic-behind-the-rights-great-replacement-arguments/">who believe in a conspiracy about white people being destroyed</a>, which they label the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2077654">great replacement theory</a> because they fear losing social, political and economic power.</p>
<p>There is no way to know if this theory factored into the majority’s votes in the Dobbs decision, but the argument that <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-fight-to-ban-abortion-is-rooted-in-the-great-replacement-theory/">not enough white people are being born</a> has been a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/23/body-politics">common historical thread</a> in the American anti-abortion movement.</p>
<p>But, while believers in the great replacement conspiracy want white women to have more babies, actual anti-abortion decisions like the Dobbs ruling <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/roe-v-wade-ruling-disproportionately-hurts-black-women-experts-say-2022-06-27/">harm Black women more</a> than any other group. <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-year-after-supreme-courts-dobbs-decision-black-women-still-struggle-for-access-to-reproductive-health-care-206369">Black women represent 39% of the country’s abortion patients</a>, but many live in communities that have limited access to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X2100009X">family planning clinics</a>. And they have <a href="https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/racial-disparities-in-maternal-and-infant-health-current-status-and-efforts-to-address-them/">disproportionately</a> higher rates of complications during pregnancy.</p>
<p>As a result, Black women – who experience <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/jwh.2020.8868">higher maternal complications</a> and mortality rates – <a href="https://www.whijournal.com/article/S1049-3867(23)00098-1/fulltext">will be forced to give birth to more babies</a>. </p>
<p>This is another period in the country in which the reproductive health decisions made by mostly white men will harm Black women.</p>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodney Coates does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the US, white men have long had the power to make decisions about women’s reproductive health care. Those decisions have often been especially harmful to Black women.Rodney Coates, Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Miami UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2111672023-08-29T12:38:13Z2023-08-29T12:38:13ZWith ‘Goodbye Mary,’ Molly Tuttle extends country music’s lineage of reproductive rights songs to the post-Roe era<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544834/original/file-20230825-29-42xgcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C3872%2C2562&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Molly Tuttle is a rising star in American roots music.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/2023BonnarooMusicandArtsFestival-DayOne/c1e9d71f78c141cdb07b816d58d78934/photo">Amy Harris/Invision/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jason Aldean’s song “<a href="https://dulerecord.bandcamp.com/track/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town">Try That In A Small Town</a>” extols small towns as bastions of conservative values standing up against a litany of violent big-city bogeymen. The song, and the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/20/1188966935/jason-aldean-try-that-in-a-small-town-song-video">backlash against it</a>, threatens to strengthen popular conceptions about the inherent <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/7484160">conservatism of country music</a>.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.middlebury.edu/college/people/william-nash">American Studies professor</a> who teaches courses on country music, I am interested in the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/03/20/594043497/think-politics-is-gone-from-country-music-listen-closer">genre’s competing “liberal” lineage</a>. For example, I have written about <a href="https://theconversation.com/barbara-kingsolvers-demon-copperhead-and-the-enduring-devastation-of-the-opioid-crisis-205378">country musicians’ compassionate responses to the opioid crisis</a>.</p>
<p>Another group of songs casts light on abortion rights, a newly pressing issue in the wake of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/19-1392">2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a> Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion. Rather than resort to angry polemics or pronouncements about morality, however, these country – and, more broadly, Americana – songs create intimate portraits of the women and men engaged in the painful realities of daily life. This helps maintain compassion and empathy in discussions of reproductive freedom.</p>
<h2>Stories in post-Roe America</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most striking of the new “abortion songs” comes from acoustic guitar wizard <a href="https://www.mollytuttlemusic.com/">Molly Tuttle</a>, a bluegrass musician and rising star in the American roots music scene. With “<a href="https://mollytuttle.bandcamp.com/track/goodbye-mary">Goodbye Mary</a>,” a track from her new album, “<a href="https://mollytuttle.bandcamp.com/album/city-of-gold">City of Gold</a>,” Tuttle creates <a href="https://thebluegrasssituation.com/read/the-inspirations-and-issues-behind-molly-tuttles-city-of-gold/">an intimate portrait of a woman’s struggle for bodily autonomy</a> that captures the potential terrors of a post-Roe America.</p>
<iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/0cONwQ7rzk0BLszUUcMIuP?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p>The story chronicles the aftermath of a love affair between Thomas and Mary, whose language marks them as country folk. The song recounts Thomas’ abandoning the pregnant Mary, who chides him for failing to keep his promise to “build a cradle soon”; sending her directions on where to find an abortionist, who refuses to perform the procedure because “the baby’s too far ‘long”; encouraging Mary to fling herself down the stairs or “ride careless down a rocky road”; and saying that he “prays for her soul” after she finds and uses a “wire” in “the old tool shed” to abort the fetus. In the final verse, she asks him, from the confines of her jail cell, to “place pretty flowers on her grave.” </p>
<p>This last twist shifts the narrative from being solely a tale about the tragic failure of the man to own his part in the conception and destruction of their fetus. The story becomes a more layered statement about a woman’s grief when she is pushed to unbearable choices, and her need to balance control of her own body with the legal and psychological guilt imposed by society when she takes the only means of control open to her. </p>
<p>The result is an intimate portrait of a woman navigating a complex landscape made more perilous by the erasure of her rights. The agency left to her, in a world where male doctors can refuse her care and absentee partners can advocate for dangerous solutions, is self-destructive and scarring.</p>
<h2>Women’s voices</h2>
<p>With “Goodbye Mary,” Tuttle joins a line of female artists who have used country, folk or roots music <a href="https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/loretta-lynn-and-beyond-reproductive-rights-country-and-folk-music">to emphasize women’s reproductive rights</a>. Perhaps the most famous example is Loretta Lynn’s “<a href="https://time.com/6219550/loretta-lynn-dies-the-pill-legacy/">The Pill</a>,” a song so controversial that it was effectively banned by country radio programmers after its 1975 release. Despite the resistance to the song, its message resonated so strongly with country listeners that it became one of Lynn’s biggest hits.
</p><blockquote>You wined me and dined me when I was your girl<br>
Promised if I’d be your wife, you’d show me the world<br>
But all I’ve seen of this old world is a bed and a doctor bill<br>
I’m tearing down your brooder house ‘cause now I’ve got the pill</blockquote><p></p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5xrjIsLmT0c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Loretta Lynn’s song ‘The Pill’ became popular despite the country music industry’s efforts to stifle it.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another well-known chronicler of women’s struggles is <a href="https://dollyparton.com">Dolly Parton</a>, whose 1970 track “<a href="https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/944906/Dolly+Parton/Down+from+Dover">Down from Dover</a>” chronicles the sufferings of an abandoned teenage mother who feels relief and grief when her baby is stillborn. Less well-known by the mainstream but no less critically important in this history is <a href="https://www.malvinareynolds.com">Malvina Reynolds</a>, whose 1973 “<a href="http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/MALVINA/mr144.htm">Rosie Jane</a>” supported the Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18">1973 Roe v. Wade ruling</a> and whose 1978 “<a href="http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/MALVINA/mr007.htm">Back Alley Surgery</a>” responded to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/abortion-and-the-law-in-america/hyde-amendment-and-its-aftermath/D0AF40D286D3AAD2DC617DEB5010947A">efforts to restrict Medicaid funding of abortion</a>. </p>
<p>There’s also a small but important history of male artists taking up these issues. Among the most moving of <a href="https://www.johnprine.com">John Prine’s</a> songs is “<a href="https://genius.com/John-prine-unwed-fathers-lyrics">Unwed Fathers</a>,” a pointed tale of Appalachian men who “can’t be bothered” with unwanted pregnancies and pursue personal and cultural freedoms that elude the women they have impregnated. </p>
<p>But not all the men in these situations are carefree. In “<a href="https://genius.com/Jason-isbell-and-the-400-unit-white-beretta-lyrics">White Beretta</a>,” a song from his “Weathervanes” album, <a href="https://www.jasonisbell.com">Jason Isbell</a> chronicles the retrospective grief and agony of a rural man who, when a teenager, failed to do more than the minimum for his pregnant girlfriend. The protagonist of the song does take her to have an abortion, but he offers her little empathy and sends her “in that room alone.” He does not regret the decision, thanking his former partner for her “grace/For the dreams we got to chase” because of her choice.</p>
<h2>Multidimensional portraits</h2>
<p>In the final analysis, both Tuttle and Isbell have created intimate, intricate portraits of people making decisions that cause them grief and bring them relief. Neither oversimplifies the issues at hand, just as neither artist wavers from the belief in the rightness of the decisions their respective characters make.</p>
<p>Put another way, these songs succeed in putting human faces on issues that have been depersonalized for political ends. Tuttle and Isbell remind their listeners that there’s more than one side to small-town life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Nash does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From the pre-Roe years to today, country musicians have written about the realities of life with restrictions on reproductive rights.William Nash, Professor of American Studies and English and American Literatures, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113292023-08-17T12:33:46Z2023-08-17T12:33:46ZOhio voters kept it easy to pass a constitutional amendment protecting abortion − but also for the majority to someday limit other rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542866/original/file-20230815-19-hrjzh2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C7%2C4732%2C3162&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People gather at the Marion County Republican Party headquarters after discussing Issue 1 on July 13, 2023, in Marion, Ohio. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-gather-at-the-marion-county-republican-party-news-photo/1583887732?adppopup=true">Maddie McGarvey/For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Issue 1 on the Ohio ballot, which aimed to raise the threshold to change the state constitution from a simple majority – 50% of voters plus one – to 60%, got <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/08/us/ohio-election-issue-1-results.html">enormous national attention</a> for a state ballot measure in an off-year special election. </p>
<p>No doubt this was because it was linked to the current state battles over abortion rights <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">following the demise of Roe v. Wade</a>. Both advocates and opponents saw the voting threshold change as potentially critical to the fate of an Ohio abortion rights measure already slated to be <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_Right_to_Make_Reproductive_Decisions_Including_Abortion_Initiative_(2023)">on the ballot in November 2023</a>. On Aug. 8, 2023, Ohio voters soundly rejected Issue 1. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/10/why-so-many-republicans-voted-no-issue-1-ohio/">Media coverage about Issue 1</a> commonly framed it as an effort by abortion opponents to obtain a short-term victory by making it much harder to pass the November abortion rights measure. The timing of the measure, and the lack of a link to current efforts to reform direct democracy, make such claims plausible. </p>
<p>But as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dCficcgAAAAJ&hl=en">scholars of</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mEd-UucAAAAJ&hl=en">direct democracy</a>, we believe Issue 1 wasn’t simply, or only, about abortion rights. </p>
<p>It provided an answer to the broader questions about what belongs in a state constitution and how and what protections should be available for members of minority groups in a democracy. </p>
<p>Ballot initiatives have historically been used to attack those rights. We believe that creating higher voting thresholds for constitutional change makes state constitutions harder to amend – and protects the minority from the majority. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542878/original/file-20230815-19-gisz6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old document that begins with 'We the People.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542878/original/file-20230815-19-gisz6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542878/original/file-20230815-19-gisz6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542878/original/file-20230815-19-gisz6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542878/original/file-20230815-19-gisz6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542878/original/file-20230815-19-gisz6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542878/original/file-20230815-19-gisz6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542878/original/file-20230815-19-gisz6e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s not so easy to amend this document, the U.S. Constitution, but it may be too easy to amend state constitutions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USConstitution/dd29bd0f764f4e649b2029ed4e594c8a/photo?Query=U.S.%20constitution&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=888&currentItemNo=2&vs=true">National Archives via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Constitutions and how they can be amended</h2>
<p>Like the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution">U.S. Constitution</a>, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/State_constitution">state constitutions are foundational documents</a>. They set out broad, general guidelines for state government, such as the powers of different branches – legislative, executive and judicial – and the rights of citizens. </p>
<p>Regular laws, or statutes, must conform to state constitutions. State constitutions also contain specific rules for how they can be amended. Some, but not all, states <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/initiative-and-referendum-states">allow amendments though ballot measures</a>.</p>
<p>To understand what’s at stake with measures like Issue 1, which aim to change the level of voter support needed to amend a constitution, here are some terms you need to understand: </p>
<p><strong>Ballot initiative</strong> - A process by which voters can, with sufficient signatures, place changes to the state constitution, regular laws or both on the ballot. Currently <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/initiative-and-referendum-states">24 states allow</a> for some type of voter initiative. The U.S. Constitution does not allow for constitutional amendment initiatives at the national level.</p>
<p><strong>Initiative constitutional amendment</strong> - A process by which voters can place a change to the state constitution on the ballot. Currently 17 states, including Ohio, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/initiative-and-referendum-states">allow for initiative constitutional amendments</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Initiative statutes</strong> - A process by which voters can place a <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/initiative-and-referendum-states">change to regular state laws</a>, such as a criminal justice law, on the ballot. Currently 21 states, including Ohio, allow for initiative statutes.</p>
<p>The normal <a href="https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Constitution_vrd.htm">process of amending the U.S. Constitution</a> is exceptionally difficult – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/opinion/constitutional-amendments-supreme-court.html">perhaps too difficult</a> – requiring two-thirds of legislators in both houses of Congress to approve a proposal; the proposal must also receive majority backing from three-fourths of state legislatures. </p>
<p>While the <a href="https://bookofthestates.org/tables/constitutional-amendment-procedure-by-the-legislature-constitutional-provisions/">process to amend state constitutions</a> is not as difficult, it is still challenging, especially if a proposal originates within the legislature. </p>
<p>States generally <a href="https://bookofthestates.org/tables/constitutional-amendment-procedure-by-the-legislature-constitutional-provisions/">require more than a simple majority</a> in a single legislative session for legislatively originated constitutional amendments. Almost all states also require subsequent voter approval of amendments backed by the legislature.</p>
<p>Yet, <a href="https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Legal/Ballot-Initiatives">Ohio</a> and some other states, including <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/initiatives">California</a> and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_the_initiative_process_in_Colorado">Colorado</a>, place much lower barriers on initiative constitutional amendments. These states allow their foundational document to be altered with a simple majority of voters at a single point in time. The contrast with the legislative route is striking and meaningful.</p>
<h2>Changing constitutions through initiatives</h2>
<p>Some characterized Issue 1’s defeat as a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/08/us/ohio-election-issue-1-results.html">victory for democracy</a>.” Yet such arguments offer little consideration of deeper issues with changing a state constitution by a single, simple majority vote on a ballot measure.</p>
<p>The American founders worried greatly about tyranny of the majority, and such concerns have also <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2111715">haunted the use of the initiative process</a>. Initiatives solve the problem of gridlocked legislatures, a feature of American legislative politics. But they also do so without much thought or discussion about principles like justice, fairness or if voting majorities are actually representative of the population at large. Additionally, the founders aimed to enhance government stability by making the U.S. Constitution difficult to amend. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-008-9081-x">decadeslong</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9993024">research</a> <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/pag.v7i2.1873">about state ballot initiatives</a> finds that state constitutions that are easy to amend – such as through simple majority votes – often end up trampling on the fundamental rights of members of minority groups.</p>
<p>As political theorist <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300267235/the-struggle-for-a-decent-politics/">Michael Walzer</a> states in a recent book about decency in politics, “Liberal democracy sets limits on majority rule,” including the protection of individual rights for members of minority groups. </p>
<p>Yet our research and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912907301984">that of others</a> show how voters commonly use the initiative process to attack the rights of minority groups – and almost never to advance them. Sometimes this includes passing initiative constitutional amendments with significantly less than 60% approval. </p>
<p>For example, the relatively liberal Colorado electorate – which more recently reelected its <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-colorado-united-states-coronavirus-pandemic-jared-polis-9e2c88bf87158a7ecc12a530b95e31ee">first openly gay, married governor</a> – <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Amendment_43,_Definition_of_Marriage_Initiative_(2006)">banned same-sex marriage in 2006</a> with an initiative constitutional amendment earning 56% of the vote. </p>
<p>California voters passed <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_8,_Same-Sex_Marriage_Ban_Initiative_(2008)">a similar measure in 2008</a> with about 52% of the vote. </p>
<p>It took the 2015 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the bans on same-sex marriage enacted by <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/06/26/same-sex-marriage-state-by-state-1/">more than half of state electorates</a>, including Colorado and California.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542869/original/file-20230815-21-qu2yj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large yellow and black banner that says 'Restore marriage Yes on 8'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542869/original/file-20230815-21-qu2yj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542869/original/file-20230815-21-qu2yj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542869/original/file-20230815-21-qu2yj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542869/original/file-20230815-21-qu2yj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542869/original/file-20230815-21-qu2yj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542869/original/file-20230815-21-qu2yj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542869/original/file-20230815-21-qu2yj5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">California banned same-sex marriage in 2008 with an initiative constitutional amendment that won about 52% of the vote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GayMarriageSchools/508c1667368d45a3b4b6931d300461aa/photo?Query=Colorado%20gay%20marriage%20vote&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=915&currentItemNo=30&vs=true">AP Photo/Steve Yeater</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Limitations of majority rule</h2>
<p>The ability to pass an initiative curbing rights with only a majority vote may exacerbate the abortion uncertainties created by the U.S. Supreme Court in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a>, which rolled back federal constitutional protection for the right to get an abortion. </p>
<p>We can imagine situations where a closely divided electorate might alternate between regimes of easy access to abortion followed by regimes of highly restricted access, or vice versa. </p>
<p>This is in part due to the lack of built-in procedures for compromise in the initiative process. Initiative constitutional amendments present voters with an up-down choice, even though <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-great-divide/9780231120593">research</a> has <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/313094/americans-abortion-views-steady-past-year.aspx">continually shown</a> that voters’ opinions about abortion are complex.</p>
<p>Initiative constitutional amendments can also add narrow technical provisions that cannot be easily gotten rid of. Such provisions can be harder to correct than those of regular legislation. </p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_13,_Tax_Limitations_Initiative_(June_1978)">Proposition 13</a>, California’s famous 1978 property tax cutting measure. That constitutional amendment included a specific provision limiting annual property tax increases to 2% annually.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/SPUR_Burdens_and_Benefits.pdf">A recent study</a> of the impact in Oakland, California – but also applicable elsewhere – showed this provision was much more beneficial to high-income than low-income homeowners. If California legislators decided to make the state’s property tax policy more equitable, they would have a very hard time doing so, because any attempt to change Proposition 13 <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-08-25/skelton-proposition-13-legislation-ballot-measure-taxes">requires a constitutional amendment</a>.</p>
<p>The inclination to support majority rule is readily understandable. But political theorists and empirical researchers alike have repeatedly warned that there is a danger of majority rule overwhelming the rights of people who are not in the majority, a phenomenon sometimes called “the tyranny of the majority.”</p>
<p>We believe it is a clear mistake to equate majority rule with justice and righteousness. Thoughtful conversations about institutional change are rare in American politics and increasingly so with <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-power-of-partisanship-9780197623794?lang=en&cc=us">everything viewed through a strictly partisan lens</a>. </p>
<p>A longer view of history might lead even some of the most ardent partisans to give the founders their due for their concern about the tyranny of the majority. That could lead to a new way to look at constitutional initiatives – not simply as a positive expression of majority, but also as a potential threat to democratic rights and a source of instability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recent push in Ohio to pass a constitutional amendment was seen as a move to curb abortion rights. It failed. Two scholars say the ballot measure was really about minority rights in a democracy.Edward L. Lascher Jr., Professor, Public Policy and Administration, California State University, SacramentoJoshua J. Dyck, Professor & Chair of Political Science; Director of the Center for Public Opinion, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2076482023-06-16T09:41:51Z2023-06-16T09:41:51ZAbortion prison sentence shows the law is focused on foetuses – why that’s dangerous for women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532234/original/file-20230615-19-y1oe3n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=87%2C45%2C2460%2C1849&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/pregnant-woman-looking-scan-baby-images-589166537">Emituu/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/woman-in-uk-jailed-for-28-months-over-taking-abortion-pills-after-legal-time-limit">imprisonment of a woman</a> in the UK for taking abortion pills at 32-34 weeks of pregnancy has shocked many. Most people are still unaware that abortion at any stage of pregnancy is <a href="https://theconversation.com/woman-jailed-over-abortion-an-expert-on-what-uk-law-actually-says-and-what-needs-to-change-207578">illegal in England and Wales</a>, unless authorised by two doctors. </p>
<p>Any woman who obtains abortion medication from sources other than an official provider faces the prospect of life imprisonment under the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/contents">Offences Against the Person Act 1861</a>. As does any woman who uses legally obtained medication in any way other than as directed, for example, delaying taking the medication.</p>
<p>Abortion (or “procuring a miscarriage”) was made a criminal offence to <a href="https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Criminal-Justice-Responses-to-Maternal-Filicide/?k=9781839096211">protect women from the dangers</a> that backstreet abortion posed in the 1800s. At this time, all abortions were surgical abortions. There were no antibiotics, and few remedies if the procedure caused uncontrollable bleeding. </p>
<p>Today, abortion is incredibly safe when it can be legally accessed – far safer than it is for a woman to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pregnancy-is-far-more-dangerous-to-women-than-abortion/">continue a pregnancy</a> to full-term. Which leads to the question: what is the purpose of the offence today?</p>
<p>Reading the sentencing hearing from this and <a href="https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Criminal-Justice-Responses-to-Maternal-Filicide/?k=9781839096211">other cases</a>, it appears the law is being used to protect foetuses. </p>
<p>In his sentencing remarks, the judge focused on the late stage of the woman’s pregnancy. Arguing that this was an aggravating factor of the case, he describes the woman’s “daughter” as “stillborn”. </p>
<p>It is important to note here that the offence of procuring a miscarriage (as detailed in the Offences Against the Person Act) makes no reference to the gestational stage of the pregnancy. The offence is also not dependent on the death of the foetus. </p>
<p>No woman who has illegally ended her pregnancy (for example, by obtaining abortion medication illegally) at an early gestational stage has been prosecuted. This suggests the application of the law is focused on protecting foetuses that could survive if born alive – not on preventing abortion.</p>
<h2>Extreme vulnerability for women</h2>
<p>This case may have further horrified many people due to the stage the woman’s pregnancy had reached at the time she took the abortion medication. </p>
<p>The limited details of the woman’s experience that are outlined in the <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/R-v.-Foster-sentencing-remarks-12.6.23.pdf">sentencing remark</a> indicate that she, like every other <a href="https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Criminal-Justice-Responses-to-Maternal-Filicide/?k=9781839096211">woman whose case I have examined</a>, acted from a place of extreme vulnerability and profound crisis. The reality is that no woman wants a late-term abortion. The motivation to seek one comes from a place of desperation.</p>
<p>During the sentencing, the judge noted the woman’s “deep emotional attachment” to her unborn child, a common experience for women in similar situations. These are not simply “unwanted” pregnancies resulting in delayed abortions.</p>
<p>Women who self-abort pregnancies late in gestation do not necessarily want the unborn baby to die. This is the situation of a woman who believes it would be impossible, possibly due to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lauras-story-jailed-for-having-an-abortion-in-britain-0m06nzrlx">fear of violence or abuse</a>, for her to bring a child into the world.</p>
<h2>The role of the criminal law</h2>
<p>Some may argue that a late-term foetus is no different to a newborn baby, and that both need criminal legal protection. But such application of the criminal law carries significant risks for women, as well as for babies and foetuses.</p>
<p>In the US, many states now explicitly <a href="https://time.com/6191886/fetal-personhood-laws-roe-abortion/">protect the unborn child</a>, resulting in women being arrested, detained and imprisoned following miscarriages and stillbirths, after exerting their right to refuse medical care during pregnancy, and for behaviour that would be legal <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/penn_law_review/vol138/iss1/11/">if they were not pregnant</a>. </p>
<p>As with almost all forms of crime control, it is the most vulnerable people – women of colour and those of lower socioeconomic status – who have been <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subjects/law/socio-legal-studies/policing-womb-invisible-women-and-criminalization-motherhood?format=PB">disproportionately criminalised</a>. In addition, a direct line can be drawn between foetal protection laws and the <a href="https://www.pregnancyjusticeus.org/pregnant_drug_users_fetal_persons_and_the_threat_to_roe_v_wade_by_lynn_m_paltrow/">overturning of Roe v Wade</a>, the supreme court case that protected the right to an abortion in the US. Protecting a foetus in law is a direct threat to reproductive rights.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of a woman with her face in her hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532163/original/file-20230615-15-mql66x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532163/original/file-20230615-15-mql66x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532163/original/file-20230615-15-mql66x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532163/original/file-20230615-15-mql66x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532163/original/file-20230615-15-mql66x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532163/original/file-20230615-15-mql66x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532163/original/file-20230615-15-mql66x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No one wants to have a late-term abortion – it comes from a place of deep crisis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-depressed-woman-155806436">Twin Design/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The criminalisation of pregnant women has also had disastrous consequences for foetuses and babies. While the aim of foetal protection laws is to prevent harm to unborn babies, the threat of legal sanctions against pregnant women has led many to <a href="https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2011/01/substance-abuse-reporting-and-pregnancy-the-role-of-the-obstetrician-gynecologist">actively avoid medical care</a> during their pregnancy due to a fear that they will be reported to the police. Lack of antenatal care is a leading factor in <a href="https://jaapl.org/content/43/2/137">pregnancy complications</a>.</p>
<p>There is also evidence that women in the US have sought abortions to <a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol89/iss2/8/">escape prosecution</a> under foetal protection laws. For example, one woman who was charged with the reckless endangerment of her foetus after inhaling paint fumes, had the <a href="https://www.pregnancyjusticeus.org/napw-documentation-state-v-greywind/">charges against her dropped</a> after she terminated the pregnancy. </p>
<p>Attempts to “protect” foetuses are, in some instances, resulting in worse health outcomes, or even death, for both foetuses and pregnant women.</p>
<p>Whether the criminal law should protect foetal life is a complex question, but it is a question for parliament alone. The courts and the Crown Prosecution Service, who decide to prosecute women, have interpreted procuring a miscarriage as a crime against a foetus. They have decided that women should be punished if their actions in later pregnancy cause the death of an unborn child. </p>
<p>Their interpretation of the law moves the statute beyond the intentions of parliament when enacted. It is time parliament involves itself in this area of criminal law, conducting a thorough and compassionate review.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Milne received funding to support this research from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/L503861/), the Socio-Legal Studies Association Research Grants Scheme 2018, and Durham Law School. Emma is a trustee of the Socio-Legal Studies Association, a charitable incorporated organisation (registered charity number 1186333).</span></em></p>Foetal protection laws carry health risks for both mothers and babies.Emma Milne, Associate Professor in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2075782023-06-14T10:56:57Z2023-06-14T10:56:57ZWoman jailed over abortion – an expert on what UK law actually says and what needs to change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531693/original/file-20230613-27-cae5hq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=70%2C50%2C6639%2C4416&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crop-close-young-african-american-woman-1863927673">fizkes/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many people assume that because abortion is relatively accessible in England, it is not a crime. The fact that a woman has now received a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/woman-in-uk-jailed-for-28-months-over-taking-abortion-pills-after-legal-time-limit">28-month prison sentence</a> for taking abortion pills past the legal time limit shows that this assumption is wrong. </p>
<p>Abortion remains within the criminal law to some extent in almost every country globally, despite the fact that it is a safe and relatively common procedure. Laws can criminalise women and pregnant people, healthcare providers or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion. The sentencing in Poland of activist <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/poland-conviction-of-activist-prosecuted-for-aiding-an-abortion-offers-chilling-snapshot-of-future/">Justyna Wydrzyńska</a> is one example. In March 2023, she received eight months community service for aiding an abortion seeker. </p>
<p>The 28-month sentence for the 44-year-old mother of three in England reflects the desperate need for a change to the law, in the form of decriminalisation. </p>
<p>In England and Wales, abortion is considered legal when it is performed by a registered medical practitioner, authorised by two doctors and meets certain conditions, such as risk to physical or mental health or risk of fetal anomaly. Abortion can only be performed after 24 weeks gestation in very limited circumstances. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bpas.org/get-involved/campaigns/briefings/abortion-law/">1967 Abortion Act</a> determines the situations in which an abortion is not a criminal act and the gestational time limits when one can be performed. The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sp/article-abstract/21/1/26/1607984?login=false">act was written</a> in response to healthcare providers’ concerns about unsafe “backstreet” abortions, rather than out of concern for women’s bodily rights or autonomy. </p>
<p>Lawmakers did not want to make abortion available on request, therefore the sections of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/contents">1861 Offences Against the Person Act</a> which criminalise abortion were not repealed. Sections 58 and 59 make it a criminal offence to administer or supply drugs or use instruments to procure an abortion. The offences carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.</p>
<p>While the 1967 Abortion Act applies in Scotland, the Offences Against the Person Act does not. There, abortion is considered a crime in common law, developed by court precedent. </p>
<p>The recent prosecution is not an anomaly. In the past eight years, police in England and Wales <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/19/abortion-legal-great-britain-women-life-sentences-roe-v-wade">have investigated</a> at least 17 people for procuring their own abortion outside the law. The legacy of the 1861 act as a Victorian colonial era law continues to be felt globally, and still applies in countries such as the Gambia, Malawi and Jamaica. </p>
<h2>Decriminalising abortion</h2>
<p>Northern Ireland is the only region of the UK where abortion is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616742.2022.2053297">decriminalised</a>. The 1967 act was never extended to Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>After years of activist lobbying and an international inquiry by the UN committee for the elimination of discrimination against women, Westminster repealed sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act in 2019 – but only in Northern Ireland. The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/345/contents/made">Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020</a> now govern abortion access. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/westminster-steps-in-after-northern-ireland-fails-to-comply-with-abortion-law-change-how-it-happened-158239">Westminster steps in after Northern Ireland fails to comply with abortion law change – how it happened</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But while the law in Northern Ireland is now more liberal, issues remain around <a href="https://theconversation.com/westminster-steps-in-after-northern-ireland-fails-to-comply-with-abortion-law-change-how-it-happened-158239">access</a> to abortion services. Healthcare providers have had to organise themselves to provide medical abortions, rather than receiving government support and people seeking surgical abortions still have to travel to England.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://policycommons.net/artifacts/2269625/abortion-care-guideline/3029443/">World Health Organization</a> (WHO) and <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/12/e010409">international human rights bodies</a> have recommended that, at minimum, abortion be removed from the criminal law and decriminalised around the world.</p>
<p>The WHO defines this as “the complete decriminalisation of abortion for all relevant actors: removing abortion from all penal/criminal laws, not applying other criminal offences (e.g., murder, manslaughter) to abortion, and ensuring there are no criminal penalties for having, assisting with, providing information about or providing abortion”. </p>
<p>This approach recognises that making abortion a crime does not prevent abortion, nor does it protect people from having unsafe abortions. What it does do is impede access and influence how people who have abortions are viewed. Higher levels of <a href="https://www.makeinroads.org/making-inroads/2021/September/how-abortion-stigma-and-criminalization-shape-each-other">stigma</a> are often seen in regions with stricter abortion laws.</p>
<p>Removing abortion from the criminal law does not mean that it is ungoverned, simply that is it governed in the same way as other health procedures. The case of Northern Ireland shows that there is nothing stopping Westminster from repealing sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act. This latest case should make it an issue of political urgency.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Pierson receives funding from the British Academy and is a board member of Alliance for Choice Belfast. </span></em></p>In the past eight years, police in England and Wales have investigated at least 17 people for procuring their own abortion outside the law.Claire Pierson, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047282023-05-12T12:20:57Z2023-05-12T12:20:57ZAn obscure 1800s law is shaping up to be the center of the next abortion battle – legal scholars explain what’s behind the Victorian-era Comstock Act<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525475/original/file-20230510-27-6r8iwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-abortion activists gather outside the Supreme Court building on April 15, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1252038585/photo/washington-d-c-april-15-pro-life-activist-also-gather-at-th.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=C5Ris2nTdaa2mUJSDSp8clY4jytuN_xW8v0v9UYQOjQ=">Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/18/1170371877/abortion-pill-mifepristone-judge-comstock#:%7E:text=What%20is%20the%20Comstock%20Act,used%20to%20cause%20an%20abortion.">Anti-abortion groups</a> are looking for new ways to wage their battle against abortion rights, eyeing the potential implications of a 150-year-old law, the Comstock Act, that could effectively lead to a nationwide abortion ban. </p>
<p>Congress passed the Comstock Act in 1873, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1461">making it a crime</a> to mail <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1462">or ship</a> any “lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article” and anything that “is advertised or described in a manner … for producing abortion.” </p>
<p>There are now legal cases questioning the Food and Drug Administration’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-does-comstock-act-a-law-from-the-1870s-have-to-do-with-abortion-pills">regulation of mifepristone</a>, one of the two drugs used in the standard regimen for medication abortion. If courts find that the FDA has the authority to approve mifepristone for abortion, the Comstock Act could still prevent the pill’s distribution. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.gwu.edu/sonia-m-suter">As scholars</a> of law and <a href="https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/nrc8g/2915359">reproductive justice</a>, we have been analyzing potential strategies to use this Victorian-era law to restrict the ability to get an abortion in the U.S.</p>
<p>Read one way, the Comstock Act could prevent mailing mifepristone to a person’s home, regardless of whether this person lives in a state where abortion is legal. </p>
<p>A broader interpretation, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/comstock-act-jonathan-mitchell/">advanced by anti-abortion groups</a> in recent months, would mean the Comstock Act applies to the distribution of all <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/28/politics/comstock-act-abortion-ban-legal-fight/index.html">drugs and medical tools</a> used <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-does-comstock-act-a-law-from-the-1870s-have-to-do-with-abortion-pills">for abortions, not just mifepristone</a>. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court returned the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">question of abortion rights</a> to states in June 2022. But it’s important to understand that the Comstock Act is a federal law that applies to states, regardless of their approach to abortion.</p>
<p>So while abortion <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html">remains legal in certain states</a>, we believe it’s possible that a court could interpret the Comstock Act to prevent the distribution of any tool used for an abortion, anywhere in the U.S. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525474/original/file-20230510-9330-8oheqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A cartoon shows a man dressed as a monk in the center holding up his hands to a display of female mannequins. The monk appears in other cases leading a horse away, chasing a poodle with a bare bottom exposed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525474/original/file-20230510-9330-8oheqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525474/original/file-20230510-9330-8oheqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525474/original/file-20230510-9330-8oheqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525474/original/file-20230510-9330-8oheqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525474/original/file-20230510-9330-8oheqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525474/original/file-20230510-9330-8oheqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525474/original/file-20230510-9330-8oheqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1906 illustration shows Anthony Comstock, center, thwarting excessive displays of flesh, be it a woman, dog or horse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/160176791/photo/st-anthony-comstock-the-village-nuisance.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=hX0j6PFsb7H2cZU3ba7wJ-sLDEnwklLtvgzjGvmZiRM=">PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The history of the Comstock Act</h2>
<p>Devout Christian and self-described “<a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7584004164925736257&q=US+v.+Dellapia&hl=en&as_sdt=20000006&as_vis=1">moral evangelist</a>” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/18/1170371877/abortion-pill-mifepristone-judge-comstock">Anthony Comstock</a> came up with the idea of what would become the Comstock Act after he felt troubled by the large amount of pornography and alcohol his fellow Union army soldiers consumed. </p>
<p>He lobbied for Congress to pass a law restricting what he deemed lewd behavior, displaying “his impressive collection of pornographic pictures, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2023/04/12/mifepristone-kacsmaryk-medication-abortion/">sex toys and contraceptive materials</a>” in the Capitol building “to help galvanize Congress to pass anti-obscenity legislation.” </p>
<p>Congress then <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-anthony-comstocks-chastity-laws/">passed the Comstock Act</a> in 1873.</p>
<p>Although prosecutions under the Comstock Act were brought in the early 1900s, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/28/politics/comstock-act-abortion-ban-legal-fight/index.html#:%7E:text=CNN%20Store-,The%20150%2Dyear%2Dold%20chastity%20law%20that%20may%20be%20the,next%20big%20fight%20over%20abortion&text=A%20law%20passed%20150%20years,where%20the%20procedure%20is%20legal.">enforcement started to wane by the 1930s</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the Supreme Court <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16134723048539384332&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr">has heard</a> the occasional <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/463/60/">case related to the law</a> over the past 100 years. In 1983, for example, the Supreme Court found that applying the Comstock Act to prohibit <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/463/60/">mailed advertisements about contraceptives</a> violated the First Amendment. </p>
<p>No court has since ruled decisively to actually enforce the Comstock Act. </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/file/1560596/download">major court decisions</a> have limited <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/abortion-pill-ban-comstock-act-history-mifepristone-kacsmaryk.html">the law’s applicability</a>. </p>
<p>And, in 2022, the Justice Department issued an opinion concluding that the Comstock Act <a href="https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/file/1560596/download">does not prohibit</a> mailing mifepristone if the sender doesn’t know the recipient intends to use those pills “illegally” for abortions – for example, the recipient might be using them to treat a miscarriage.</p>
<h2>Applying the Comstock Act today</h2>
<p>As anti-abortion rights groups try to reinvigorate the Comstock Act, the question is what the law covers, exactly. Several legal cases are addressing this point in different contexts. </p>
<p>Texas federal court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk – who issued a preliminary decision on April 7, 2023, <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23746119/read-texas-federal-judge-ruling-on-abortion-pill.pdf">effectively rescinding the FDA’s approval of mifepristone</a> – said the Comstock Act prevented the mailing of abortion pills. </p>
<p>When that decision was appealed, the appellate court seemed to agree with Kacsmaryk. It noted that the law <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.213145/gov.uscourts.ca5.213145.183.2_1.pdf">does not necessarily require users</a> “of the mails or common interstate carriage to intend that an abortion actually occur,” contrary to the Justice Department’s 2022 opinion. It emphasized, however, that it was “not required to definitively interpret the Comstock Act” because it was not issuing a final ruling. </p>
<p>That decision was then appealed to the Supreme Court, which temporarily upheld the availability of mifepristone and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22a901_3d9g.pdf">sent the case back to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for full review</a> on April 21. </p>
<p>The appellate court will hear oral arguments on May 17 and should issue a more definitive interpretation. </p>
<h2>Extending to other lawsuits</h2>
<p>The Comstock Act is also at the center of other kinds of litigation and legal campaigns focused on whether people can get abortions.</p>
<p>Jonathan Mitchell, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-conservative-who-wants-to-bring-down-the-supreme-court">a conservative lawyer</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/07/1174672358/jonathan-mitchell-the-legal-mind-behind-the-texas-abortion-ban">former solicitor general of Texas</a>, is trying to use the Comstock Act to outlaw abortion altogether. Notably he also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/us/politics/texas-abortion-lawyer-jonathan-mitchell.html">devised</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/08/1174552727/jonathan-mitchell-abortion-texas-sb8-roe-v-wade-dobbs">the Texas “bounty-hunter” abortion legislation </a>in 2021 that bans most abortions and “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/abortion-law-regulations-texas.html">deputizes citizens to sue people involved in the process</a>.” </p>
<p>Since 2019, two counties and more than 60 cities in Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, New Mexico, Louisiana and Illinois <a href="https://sanctuarycitiesfortheunborn.com/">have passed ordinances</a> that ban abortion. This is part of a political campaign called Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn – orchestrated by Mitchell and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/09/pastor-push-national-abortion-ban-sanctuary-cities-for-the-unborn">conservative pastor Mark Lee Dickson</a>. </p>
<p>Some of these places <a href="https://sanctuarycitiesfortheunborn.org/">now prohibit</a> the shipment and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1462">receipt of abortion drugs or medical items</a> used for abortions.</p>
<p>These ordinances have led to two lawsuits questioning their legal status.</p>
<p>New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued several Sanctuary City towns in January 2023, claiming that the ordinances <a href="https://www.nmag.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Mandamus-Reply.pdf">violated state law that says</a> people have the right to access health care and that physicans’ care of patients is a private matter. </p>
<p>But then the New Mexico city of Eunice, another Sanctuary City, also filed a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kHwoeKlQNgJ7gEFPd-RNVrya1d8-21gS/view">lawsuit in April 2022</a>, asking a state court to determine that the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kHwoeKlQNgJ7gEFPd-RNVrya1d8-21gS/view">Comstock Act is enforceable</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, the Comstock Act is being applied even after an abortion has occurred.</p>
<p><a href="https://s4f4x7d5.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/1-Silva-v.-Noyola-Original-Petition-FINAL.pdf">In a Texas lawsuit filed</a> in March 2023, Texas resident Marcus Silva sued three women for wrongful death, saying they assisted in “murdering Ms. Silva’s unborn child with illegally obtained abortion pills.” The complaint notes that Silva will also sue the pills’ manufacturer for wrongful death based on the Comstock Act. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525483/original/file-20230510-25-g46cen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A truck shows a purple advertisement on its side that says, 'Pharmacists know, mifepristone saves lives.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525483/original/file-20230510-25-g46cen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525483/original/file-20230510-25-g46cen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525483/original/file-20230510-25-g46cen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525483/original/file-20230510-25-g46cen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525483/original/file-20230510-25-g46cen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525483/original/file-20230510-25-g46cen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525483/original/file-20230510-25-g46cen.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An advertisement outside a pharmacists conference in Phoenix advocates for the safety and necessity of mifepristone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1476304220/photo/ultraviolet-calls-on-pharmacists-to-reaffirm-that-mifepristone-a-medication-abortion-drug-is.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=vJBZrHKeA1NR572zGNXCuj0gMCaq9O_xqJVH2sFa1VE=">Chris Coduto/Getty Images for UltraViolet</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mailing, distributing or banning?</h2>
<p>It seems likely that the high-profile federal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/health/abortion-pills-ruling-texas.html">FDA mifepristone case in Texas</a> could <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-pill-mifepristone-supreme-court-texas-436fe0de292379b469159a3ed7b62fef">head back to the Supreme Court</a> after the 5th Circuit issues its ruling. If so, the Supreme Court could determine that the Comstock Act only applies to the mailing of items if the sender knows the items are intended to be used “illegally” for abortions. In that case, little or nothing would change in states where abortion is legal.</p>
<p>Or, the court could decide that the Comstock Act bars mailing mifepristone regardless of its user’s intent, making access to medication abortion more difficult. The court could also cast a wider net, prohibiting the shipping of abortion medication altogether across the U.S. </p>
<p>And if the Comstock Act applies to mifepristone, it could also apply to any other item or tool that is used to terminate a pregnancy. Such a ruling would effectively impose a nationwide ban on abortion, even in states that allow abortions. To achieve this result based on an 1873 Victorian statute would be entirely consistent with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade based on the state of the law in 1868.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 1873 Comstock Act makes it a crime to mail abortion drugs or medicine – raising legal questions about the law’s potential revival and influence over nationwide abortion laws.Sonia Suter, Professor of law, George Washington UniversityNaomi Cahn, Professor of Law, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2019002023-04-19T12:45:25Z2023-04-19T12:45:25ZTo understand American politics, you need to move beyond left and right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520636/original/file-20230412-18-9xinwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C6968%2C4000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's a more sophisticated way to understand how Americans divide themselves politically.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/close-up-us-election-badges-with-the-national-flag-royalty-free-image/1340786091?phrase=right%20and%20left%20in%20politics%20U.S.%20&adppopup=true">Torsten Asmus/ iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Are Americans really as politically polarized as they seem – and everybody says? </p>
<p>It’s definitely true that Democrats and Republicans <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034">increasingly hate and fear one another</a>. But this animosity seems to have more to do with tribal loyalty than liberal-versus-conservative <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfy005">disagreements about policy</a>. Our research into what Americans actually want in terms of policy shows that many have strong political views that can’t really be characterized in terms of “right” or “left.” </p>
<p>The media often talks about the American political landscape as if it were a line. Liberal Democrats are on the left, conservative Republicans on the right, and a small sliver of moderate independents are in the middle. But <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/cmjs/about/people/wright.html">political scientists</a> <a href="https://cssh.northeastern.edu/student/sasha-volodarsky/">like us</a> have long argued that a line is a bad metaphor for how Americans think about politics. </p>
<p>Sometimes scholars and pundits will argue that views on economic issues like taxes and income redistribution, and views on so-called social or cultural issues like abortion and gay marriage, actually represent two distinct dimensions in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-060314-115422">American political attitudes</a>. Americans, they say, can have liberal views on one dimension <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/351494/americans-divided-social-economic-issues.aspx">but conservative views on the other</a>. So you could have a pro-choice voter who wants lower taxes, or a pro-life voter who wants the government to do more to help the poor. </p>
<p>But even this more sophisticated, two-dimensional picture doesn’t reveal what Americans actually want the government to do – or not do – when it comes to policy. </p>
<p>First, it ignores some of the most contentious topics in American politics today, like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/31/1131789230/supreme-court-affirmative-action-harvard-unc">affirmative action</a>, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-convention-embraces-black-lives-matter/2020/08/18/f1de2ce8-e0f7-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html">Black Lives Matter movement</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/16/desantis-anti-woke-law-00087483">attempts to stamp out “wokeness”</a> on college campuses.</p>
<p>Since 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency while simultaneously <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-fresh-look-back-at-2016-finds-america-with-an-identity-crisis/2018/09/15/0ac62364-b8f0-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html">stoking racial anxieties</a> and bucking Republican orthodoxy on <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-breaks-gop-orthodoxy-taxes-msna670121">taxes</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trump-says-he-s-fine-gay-marriage-60-minutes-interview-n683606">same-sex marriage</a>, it has become clear that what Americans think about politics can’t really be understood without knowing what they think about racism, and what – if anything – they want done about it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a white shirt and tie with gray hair, standing at a lectern outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520635/original/file-20230412-20-95tq6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Racial Justice Communitarians’ have liberal views on economic issues and moderate or conservative views on moral issues; some Black evangelicals supported Barack Obama but were troubled by his support for same-sex marriage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-barack-obama-speaks-at-capital-university-on-news-photo/160056112?adppopup=true">Charles Ommanney/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Recently, some political scientists have argued that views on racial issues represent a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/96/4/1757/4781058">third “dimension” in American politics</a>. But there are other problems with treating political attitudes as a set of “dimensions” in the first place. For example, even a “3D” picture doesn’t allow for the possibility that Americans with conservative economic views tend to also hold conservative racial views, while Americans with liberal economic views are deeply divided on issues related to race. </p>
<h2>A new picture of American politics</h2>
<p>In our new <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12517">article in Sociological Inquiry</a>, we analyzed public opinion data from 2004 to 2020 to develop a more nuanced picture of American political attitudes. Our aim was to do a better job of figuring out what Americans actually think about politics, including policies related to race and racism. </p>
<p>Using a new analytic method that doesn’t force us to think in terms of dimensions at all, we found that, over the past two decades, Americans can be broadly divided into five different groups.</p>
<p>In most years, slightly less than half of all Americans had consistently liberal or conservative views on policies related to the economy, morality and race, and thus fall into one of two groups. </p>
<p>“Consistent Conservatives” tend to believe that the free market should be given free rein in the economy, are generally anti-abortion, tend to say that they support “traditional family ties” and oppose most government efforts to address racial disparities. These Americans almost exclusively identify themselves as Republicans.</p>
<p>“Consistent Liberals” strongly support government intervention in the economy, tend to be in favor of abortion rights and pro-same-sex marriage and feel that the government has a responsibility to help address discrimination against Black Americans. They mostly identify as Democrats.</p>
<p>But the majority of Americans, who don’t fall into one of these two groups, are not necessarily “moderates,” as they are often characterized. Many have very strong views on certain issues, but can’t be pigeonholed as being on the left or right in general. </p>
<p>Instead, we find that these Americans can be classified as one of three groups, whose size and relationship to the two major parties change from one election cycle to the next: </p>
<p>“Racial Justice Communitarians” have liberal views on economic issues like taxes and redistribution and moderate or conservative views on moral issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. They also strongly believe that the government has a responsibility to address racial discrimination. This group likely includes many of the Black evangelicals who strongly supported Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, but were also deeply uncomfortable with his expression of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/05/10/152442748/black-voters-likely-to-stick-with-obama-despite-gay-marriage-stance">support for same-sex marriage in 2012</a>.</p>
<p>“Nativist Communitarians” also have liberal views on economics and conservative views on moral issues, but they are extremely conservative with respect to race and immigration, in some cases even more so than Consistent Conservatives. Picture, for instance, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds">those voters in 2016</a> who were attracted to both Bernie Sanders’ economic populism and Donald Trump’s attacks on immigrants. </p>
<p>“Libertarians,” who we find became much more prominent after the tea party protests of 2010, are conservative on economic issues, liberal on social issues and have mixed but generally conservative views in regard to racial issues. Think here of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/18/d-c-silicon-valley-00087611">Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists</a> who think that the government has no business telling them how to run their company – or telling gay couples that they can’t get married.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large collection of colorful campaign signs placed in the ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520633/original/file-20230412-18-ejntu7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three groups of Americans have a difficult time fitting in with either of America’s two major parties.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/campaign-signs-are-shown-near-voters-waiting-in-line-at-news-photo/1244613234?adppopup=true">Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Five groups – but only two parties</h2>
<p>These three groups of Americans have a difficult time fitting in with either of the two major parties in the U.S. </p>
<p>In every year we looked, the Racial Justice Communitarians – who include the largest percentage of nonwhite Americans – were most likely to identify as Democrats. But in some years up to 40% still thought of themselves as Republicans or independents.</p>
<p>Nativist Communitarians and Libertarians are even harder to pin down. During the Obama years they were actually slightly more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. But since Trump’s rise in 2016, both groups are now slightly more likely to identify as Republicans, although large percentages of each group describe themselves as independents or Democrats.</p>
<p>Seeing Americans as divided into these five groups – as opposed to polarized between the left and right – shows that both political parties are competing for coalitions of voters with different combinations of views.</p>
<p>Many Racial Justice Communitarians disagree with the Democratic Party when it comes to cultural and social issues. But the party probably can’t win national elections without their votes. And, unless they are willing to make a strong push for promoting “racial justice,” the Republican Party’s national electoral prospects probably depend on attracting significant support from either the economically liberal Nativist Communitarians or the socially liberal Libertarians. </p>
<p>But perhaps most importantly, these five groups show how diverse Americans’ political attitudes really are. Just because American democracy is a two-party system doesn’t mean that there are only two kinds of American voters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201900/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We often talk about the American political landscape as if it were a line – Democrats on the left, Republicans on the right. Two political scientists say that view doesn’t reflect reality.Graham Wright, Associate Research Scientist, Maurice & Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis UniversitySasha Volodarsky, Ph.D. Student in Political Science, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2031312023-04-10T20:00:33Z2023-04-10T20:00:33ZBritish Columbia’s coverage of contraceptives should inspire the rest of North America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520087/original/file-20230410-7003-jfzc31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3655&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">British Columbia's move to provide free contraception is an act of defending and upholding reproductive rights and freedoms.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://bc.ctvnews.ca/access-to-free-birth-control-begins-in-british-columbia-1.6339248">As of April 1, 2023 all residents of British Columbia gained access to free prescription contraception</a>. This includes the birth control pill, injections and implants, IUDs and emergency contraception known as Plan B or the “morning after” pill.</p>
<p>The bold move makes good on a campaign promise of the NDP government. </p>
<p>It’s the focus of sustained activism of groups like <a href="https://www.accessbc.org/">AccessBC</a> and Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, and was ignited by the ongoing abortion politics south of the border, where a judge in Texas just <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/health/abortion-pills-ruling-texas.html">issued a preliminary ruling invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone</a>. That ruling was almost immediately followed <a href="https://apnews.com/article/washington-abortion-pills-lawsuit-fda-1857d1a4fd356c61ad76e00621e93b44">by a contradictory decision</a> by a judge in Washington state.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-coverage/pharmacare-for-bc-residents/what-we-cover/prescription-contraceptives">B.C. policy</a> could serve as a model for other provinces — Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government, for example, has already said it’s “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2023/03/08/ontario-looking-closely-at-bc-plan-to-offer-free-contraception-health-minister-says.html">looking closely at what British Columbia has proposed</a>.” </p>
<p>Nonetheless, universal coverage of contraception beyond British Columbia is unlikely at the moment. It does not seem to be a serious proposal of any current provincial government. </p>
<p>While some provincial opposition parties have promised universal contraception, policy progress depends on whether they actually get elected. It will also depend on a number of factors that will shape their political agenda once in office.</p>
<h2>List not fully complete</h2>
<p>The new coverage in B.C. is extended to anyone with a provincial health card and requires a physician’s prescription until later this spring, when <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/accessing-health-care/pharmacy-services">pharmacists will be able to prescribe contraceptives</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519991/original/file-20230409-6385-i30zeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A package of birth control pills." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519991/original/file-20230409-6385-i30zeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519991/original/file-20230409-6385-i30zeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519991/original/file-20230409-6385-i30zeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519991/original/file-20230409-6385-i30zeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519991/original/file-20230409-6385-i30zeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519991/original/file-20230409-6385-i30zeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519991/original/file-20230409-6385-i30zeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A one-month dosage of hormonal birth control pills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The list of contraceptives included in this plan <a href="https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/bc-provides-list-of-birth-control-methods-to-be-covered-6668608">is comprehensive but not exhaustive</a>. Other forms of birth control and menstrual regulation, according to the B.C. government, might be considered in the future. </p>
<p>There seems to be no significant discussion of extending the coverage to B.C. residents who don’t have a provincial health card, such as undocumented residents and migrant workers for whom <a href="https://www.alternateroutes.ca/index.php/ar/article/view/22448">reproductive rights</a> are already sometimes inaccessible. </p>
<p>And accessibility will be dependent upon pharmacists’ willingness to dispense medication, something that might be particularly contentious, not to mention time-sensitive with emergency contraception. </p>
<p>Pharmacists are allowed to refuse to stock or dispense medication as a matter of conscience, something that has been a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.2562">barrier for medication abortion access</a> in Canada, especially in rural areas. Yet despite these criticisms, the B.C. plan serves as an example of equitable primary sexual and reproductive health care delivered at the provincial level.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/roe-v-wade-canada-can-respond-to-u-s-bans-by-improving-access-to-abortion-care-here-185827">Roe v. Wade: Canada can respond to U.S. bans by improving access to abortion care here</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Opposition promises in other provinces</h2>
<p>Opposition parties in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have all promised to implement the <a href="https://bc.ctvnews.ca/access-to-free-birth-control-begins-in-british-columbia-1.6339248">same policy</a> if elected. But at this point, such a commitment really just amounts to a progressive idea in the context of conservative provincial politics, with <a href="https://thecanadaguide.com/data/provincial-premiers/">centre-right parties in power in eight of 10 provinces. </a></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A man is seen in profile under a large golden ceiling light." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519993/original/file-20230409-24-z3gijl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519993/original/file-20230409-24-z3gijl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519993/original/file-20230409-24-z3gijl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519993/original/file-20230409-24-z3gijl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519993/original/file-20230409-24-z3gijl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519993/original/file-20230409-24-z3gijl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519993/original/file-20230409-24-z3gijl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix is seen during a news conference with his provincial counterparts in Vancouver in November 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This means that the B.C. policy might reflect the uniqueness of the province’s political dynamics and also demonstrates what is possible, given the right political conditions, in the realm of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/722896">reproductive rights</a>. </p>
<p>It’s also reflective of the broader North American <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14647001221114611">politics of abortion</a>, as the timing of the policy — a campaign promise of the NDP government, elected in 2020 — seems to respond to the reversal of reproductive rights in the United States with the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">overturn of <em>Roe v. Wade</em> </a> in June 2022.</p>
<p>The end of constitutional protection of the right to abortion in the U.S. created momentum for strengthening abortion policy and reproductive rights in Canada. </p>
<p>In response <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/24/us/politics/supreme-court-dobbs-jackson-analysis-roe-wade.html">to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling</a>, the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/abortion-funding-expanded-roe-v-wade-1.6449487">federal Liberal government has increased and sustained commitments to ensuring access to abortion</a> and other areas of sexual and reproductive health and rights.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mexicos-help-to-american-women-who-need-abortions-should-inspire-canada-202117">Mexico's help to American women who need abortions should inspire Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Reproductive justice</h2>
<p>Much of this work is carried out by organizations like <a href="https://www.actioncanadashr.org/">Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights</a> and the <a href="https://nafcanada.org/">National Abortion Federation Canada</a>, with advocacy and information campaigns by the <a href="https://www.arcc-cdac.ca/">Abortion Rights Coalition</a>. </p>
<p>All insist that contraception and abortion are both matters of individual autonomy and <a href="https://www.sistersong.net/reproductive-justice">reproductive justice</a>. At the provincial level, <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mobile/quebec-college-of-physicians-announces-new-guidelines-to-make-access-to-abortion-medication-easier-1.5988310">Québec reduced restrictions</a> on the dispensing of mifegymiso, the drug used in medication abortion. Other provinces, including <a href="https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/how-to-get-an-abortion-in-nova-scotia-28911462">Nova Scotia</a>, created abortion self-referral networks.</p>
<p>But the B.C. government’s universal contraception announcement is the most recent positive policy response to the reversal of reproductive rights in the U.S.</p>
<p>Of course not all of the impact of the <em>Dobbs</em> decision on Canada has been positive. In the immediate aftermath of the overturn of <em>Roe</em>, the Manitoba legislature <a href="https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/ndp-bill-for-abortion-clinic-buffer-zones-defeated-in-house-1.5623693">defeated a bill</a> that would have provided buffer zone protection for abortion clinics. </p>
<p>The same organizations that benefit from increased federal funding — and use it to support women and other pregnant people — indicate that Canadian women who used to travel to the U.S. for certain kinds of abortions are finding it more difficult to do so due to increased restrictions and bans on the American side of the border.</p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/07/abortion-pill-ruling-texas-washington/">duelling U.S. court decisions</a> concerning restrictions on mifepristone will only increase this difficulty and limit reproductive rights. </p>
<p>Policies like B.C.’s universal coverage of contraception will help to expand reproductive rights. That’s why it’s such an important decision.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519992/original/file-20230409-16-dgu48i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sea of people carrying pro-choice signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519992/original/file-20230409-16-dgu48i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519992/original/file-20230409-16-dgu48i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519992/original/file-20230409-16-dgu48i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519992/original/file-20230409-16-dgu48i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519992/original/file-20230409-16-dgu48i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519992/original/file-20230409-16-dgu48i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519992/original/file-20230409-16-dgu48i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People march through downtown Atlanta in June 2022 to protest the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ben Gray, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Defending reproductive rights</h2>
<p>On a practical level, funding for contraception has the effect of making birth control available for everyone, with no privilege for those who have private insurance or can afford to pay and no disadvantage for those who have trouble affording it.</p>
<p>But beyond this, public support and payment for contraception serves to normalize birth control, Plan B and sexual health and reproductive rights as a public good and as a matter of public responsibility. </p>
<p>In an age of increased privatization in health care in general, and the increased stigmatization and criminalization surrounding abortion, the B.C. move is a positive step that fully embraces sexual and reproductive health and rights for everyone in post-<em>Roe</em> North America.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Candace Johnson receives funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).</span></em></p>British Columbia’s move to provide free contraceptives is a positive step that fully embraces sexual and reproductive health and rights for everyone in post-Roe North America.Candace Johnson, Professor of Political Science, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1952792022-12-04T12:36:31Z2022-12-04T12:36:31ZPro-choice crowdfunding has surged in the U.S. — but donating that way has risks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498049/original/file-20221129-13745-wc1ghw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C97%2C5912%2C3221&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abortion rights protesters attend a rally outside the Michigan capitol building on June 24, 2022, following the United States Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf"><em>Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</em></a> decision by the United States Supreme Court earlier this year overturned constitutional protections of reproductive choice for Americans.</p>
<p>The ruling sparked protests, political action and outreach to women affected by the decision, including <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/donations-us-abortion-rights-groups-clinics-surge-after-supreme-court-leak-2022-05-04/">a flood</a> of financial contributions to pro-choice organizations and causes.</p>
<p>Crowdfunding campaigns have been part of the story of financial support for reproductive justice in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision. But while these campaigns have been massively successful by the standards of crowdfunding, they also raise significant concerns.</p>
<h2>Repercussions</h2>
<p>Financial needs arising from the <em>Dobbs</em> decision are acute. In addition to money for political and legal activism at the federal and state levels, women in states with newly restrictive abortion laws have been forced to cross state lines to access reproductive services. </p>
<p>These needs require support that may not be available from employers and insurance companies, particularly against a backdrop of policy change and legal uncertainty. </p>
<p>Women travelling to seek reproductive care as a result of <em>Dobbs</em> <a href="https://sites.utexas.edu/txpep/files/2022/03/TxPEP-out-of-state-SB8.pdf">have reported</a> being forced to take out loans or dip into their savings, and are struggling to pay rent and other bills. </p>
<p>In the two months after the <em>Dobbs</em> decision, approximately <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/overturning-roe-has-meant-at-least-10000-fewer-legal-abortions/">10,000 fewer</a> legal abortions took place in the U.S. By the end of October 2022, at least <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/2022/10/100-days-post-roe-least-66-clinics-across-15-us-states-have-stopped-offering-abortion-care">66 U.S. abortion providers had closed</a>. </p>
<p>Clinics in states with newly restrictive laws must now seek legal advice about whether they can remain open while also exploring relocating to more permissive states. </p>
<p>Given these new realities, many people have been moved to donate to women in need of abortions, funds and organizations that provide access to abortion, and political and legal advocacy groups that work to protect reproductive choice. </p>
<h2>Influx of funds</h2>
<p>The National Network of Abortion Funds, for example, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/abortion-funds-donations-roe.html">says it received</a> US$1.5 million the week the <em>Dobbs</em> decision was leaked in May 2022, and more than US$3 million from 33,000 donors on June 24, 2022, the day of the Supreme Court ruling.</p>
<p>Social media has been key to organizing online giving as well — activist Olivia Julianna <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/olivia-julianna-abortion-fundraiser-trolled-matt-gaetz-2-million-dollars-2022-8">helped raise</a> more than $2.3 million for the <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/genzforchoice">Gen-Z for Choice Abortion Fund</a> after being body-shamed by Republican representative Matt Gaetz.</p>
<p>While the majority of this fundraising activity has taken the form of direct donations to individuals and organizations, others have used crowdfunding to facilitate giving. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1553832229255761922"}"></div></p>
<h2>A surge in donations</h2>
<p>My preliminary research has found that between May 2, 2022 — when the <em>Dobbs</em> decision was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473">first leaked</a> — and the Nov. 8, 2022 midterm elections in the U.S., 308 American crowdfunding campaigns on the GoFundMe platform raised almost US$3.2 million from more than 41,000 donations.</p>
<p>This included money for campaigns for abortion access funds like the National Network of Abortion Funds, organizations and protest movements seeking to protect and expand reproductive rights and women seeking abortion access.</p>
<p>Recent giving through crowdfunding is markedly different than abortion-related crowdfunding prior to <em>Dobbs</em>. When a colleague and I looked at these fundraisers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-020-00938-2">in 2018</a>, we only identified five campaigns for abortion funds compared to 226 following the <em>Dobbs</em> ruling. The 2018 fundraisers were also much more focused on individuals.</p>
<p>In addition to being more focused on pro-choice organizations, the recent abortion rights fundraisers are also much more successful than earlier abortion access campaigns. In 2018, campaigns seeking to provide abortion access averaged four donors with US$138.82 pledged per campaign, whereas the post-<em>Dobbs</em> campaigns attracted an average of 135 donors with US$10,300 pledged per campaign. </p>
<p>And while only 25 per cent of earlier campaigns received a donation, every one of the post-<em>Dobbs</em> campaigns received support.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a mask that says bans off our bodies carries a sign that reads Keep Your Religion Out of my Uterus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498043/original/file-20221129-24-bkkrts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498043/original/file-20221129-24-bkkrts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498043/original/file-20221129-24-bkkrts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498043/original/file-20221129-24-bkkrts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498043/original/file-20221129-24-bkkrts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498043/original/file-20221129-24-bkkrts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498043/original/file-20221129-24-bkkrts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protester outside the Kentucky Supreme Court chambers rallies in favour of abortion rights. Crowdfunding donations to abortion rights campaigns have dramatically increased since 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Campaign organizers at risk?</h2>
<p>On the face of it, this is good news for proponents of reproductive choice, as it shows that crowdfunding can be part of a larger effort to support this cause. </p>
<p>But crowdfunding is an imperfect means of organizing this support. </p>
<p>Being successful in crowdfunding typically requires putting personal details online. This can include who is doing the fundraising, why it’s needed and where the money will go. In the case of women seeking an abortion, this means giving the public access to deeply personal information at an emotionally vulnerable moment. </p>
<p>Even for those fundraising on behalf of an organization or abortion access fund, crowdfunding can mean putting a public target on their backs to people who view abortion as the moral equivalent of murder.</p>
<p>Crowdfunding platforms also act as intermediaries between campaigners and donors, shaping how money is paid out — or whether campaigns are allowed at all. Platforms could decide not to host abortion-related campaigns if they’re opposed to abortion rights or fear that supporting those rights will draw unwanted attention. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-gofundme-violating-its-own-terms-of-service-on-the-freedom-convoy-176147">Is GoFundMe violating its own terms of service on the 'freedom convoy?'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Crowdfunding restrictions</h2>
<p>This isn’t a hypothetical concern.</p>
<p>GoFundMe <a href="https://www.salon.com/2014/09/10/gofundme_bans_all_content_relating_to_abortion_but_leaves_antiabortion_campaigns_active/">temporarily banned</a> campaigns to pay for abortion in 2014, and the right-wing Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo currently <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/givesendgo-crowdfunding-extremism/">restricts campaigns for abortion access</a>. </p>
<p>While GoFundMe is currently home to a wide range of abortion rights campaigns, many American states <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/03/us/abortion-help-travel-out-of-state-online-offers/index.html">are exploring</a> <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3536720-the-right-to-travel-to-seek-an-abortion-in-a-post-dobbs-world/">legal</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/29/abortion-state-lines/">action</a> to prevent and potentially prosecute people facilitating abortions. </p>
<p>These actions create legal exposure for crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe and, as a for-profit company, it could easily choose to restrict these campaigns in its own self-interest.</p>
<p>In short, crowdfunding encourages giving but also adds new barriers. Giving directly to abortion rights groups and pro-choice organizations helps avoid some of these problems while still making giving easy. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498056/original/file-20221129-7082-y1xnou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A protester holds up a sign that reads We Will Not Go Back." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498056/original/file-20221129-7082-y1xnou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498056/original/file-20221129-7082-y1xnou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498056/original/file-20221129-7082-y1xnou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498056/original/file-20221129-7082-y1xnou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498056/original/file-20221129-7082-y1xnou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498056/original/file-20221129-7082-y1xnou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498056/original/file-20221129-7082-y1xnou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An abortion rights supporter protests at the Mississippi Capitol. Crowdfunding can encourage donations but also poses new obstacles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)</span></span>
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<p>Direct giving can also allow these organizations to develop relationships with donors that may be sustained beyond the initial outrage of the <em>Dobbs</em> decision. Online crowdfunding uses social media to increase the visibility of giving and encourage others to help, but people who want to make their support public and encourage giving online can still choose to do so. </p>
<p>While crowdfunding campaigns are well-intentioned and have done a great deal of good, there are thankfully less compromised venues for support available.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Snyder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Crowdfunding campaigns are well-intentioned and have done a great deal of good on the abortion rights front, but there are less compromised venues for support available.Jeremy Snyder, Professor, Health Sciences, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1936992022-11-04T16:21:21Z2022-11-04T16:21:21ZWhat’s at stake this Election Day – 7 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493337/original/file-20221103-13-5pz4zm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People volunteer at a Native Alaskan voting station on Nov. 2, 2022 in Anchorage. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/people-participate-in-voting-in-the-upcoming-midterm-elections-at-a-picture-id1244447058?s=612x612">Spencer Platt/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Election Day closes in, uncertainty and concern about potential chaos – from violence at polling sites to candidates refusing to accept defeat – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63494618">continue to rise</a>. </p>
<p>Problems that have historically plagued the U.S. electoral and political system – like voter intimidation – are cropping up ahead of the midterms. But so, too, are less familiar issues, like how previously run-of-the-mill state election positions are becoming opportunities for political activism.</p>
<p>Here are seven key issues that affect the midterm elections, drawn from stories in The Conversation’s archive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white older man in a dark blue suit stands next to two American flags, and a third very large flag over a blue backdrop. A Black man in a suit stands on the other side of the American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493338/original/file-20221103-19-xv0h1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">President Joe Biden spoke on Nov. 2, 2022, warning of the need to preserve and protect democracy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/president-joe-biden-arrives-to-deliver-remarks-on-preserving-and-as-picture-id1244440371?s=612x612">Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>1. Who is voting</h2>
<p>Voter participation during midterm elections is typically low – though <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/01/turnout-in-u-s-has-soared-in-recent-elections-but-by-some-measures-still-trails-that-of-many-other-countries/">some experts say</a> that there could be heavy turnout this year. But the question of who actually heads to the polls will also be critical, as races in key <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/">swing states tighten</a>. </p>
<p>Young voters are much less likely to vote during midterms than older people, as opposed to their higher turnouts during presidential elections, American University government scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1XMWY78AAAAJ&hl=en">Jan Leighley</a> wrote. Young voters are also more likely to identify as Democrats. </p>
<p>“So if younger voters are underrepresented in the November 2022 elections, more Republicans may be elected, as well as candidates less likely to reflect younger citizens’ views on key issues,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/young-voters-are-more-likely-to-skip-midterm-elections-than-presidential-races-192314">Leighley wrote.</a> </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/young-voters-are-more-likely-to-skip-midterm-elections-than-presidential-races-192314">Young voters are more likely to skip midterm elections than presidential races</a>
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<p>This year, meanwhile, record numbers of Latinos are also expected to turn out to vote. In 2020, most Latinos voted for President Joe Biden – but increasing numbers of Latino voters are also supporting GOP candidates, including former president Donald Trump, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gop-made-gains-among-latino-voters-in-2020-but-democrats-remain-the-party-of-choice-for-upcoming-midterms-192679">wrote University of Tennessee social work</a> scholar <a href="https://experts.utk.edu/experts/mary-lehman-held/">Mary Lehman Held.</a></p>
<p>One reason is that Latino voters have different backgrounds, values and priorities. And not all would be turned off by Republican candidates’ restrictive immigration politics. </p>
<p>“Immigration policies only affect a subset of Latinos, most notably Mexicans, followed by Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans,” Lehman Held explained.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gop-made-gains-among-latino-voters-in-2020-but-democrats-remain-the-party-of-choice-for-upcoming-midterms-192679">The GOP made gains among Latino voters in 2020 but Democrats remain the party of choice for upcoming midterms</a>
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<h2>2. What voters want</h2>
<p>It’s the economy, stupid, <a href="https://politicaldictionary.com/words/its-the-economy-stupid/">as the famous</a> 1992 political adage about voters’ top concern goes. </p>
<p>Soaring inflation <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inflation-will-likely-stay-sky-high-regardless-of-which-party-wins-the-midterms-193416">rates top voters’</a> concerns this year, even though neither political party has been found particularly more effective at tackling the issue and bringing down inflation, as Texas State University finance scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eP0xZ1kAAAAJ&hl=en">William Chittenden wrote.</a></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inflation-will-likely-stay-sky-high-regardless-of-which-party-wins-the-midterms-193416">Why inflation will likely stay sky-high regardless of which party wins the midterms</a>
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<p>There was a flurry of political activism around the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18">Roe v. Wade</a> in June 2022, undoing the federal right to an abortion. But just four months later, men and women both say that abortion politics are not bringing them to the polls, according to Harvard Kennedy School and Northwestern University social science scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vUKLlG4AAAAJ&hl=en">Matthew A. Baum</a>, <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/alaunasafarpour/home">Alauna Safarpour</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=P_3neYQAAAAJ&hl=en">Jonathan Schulman</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0JH3YoUAAAAJ&hl=en">Kristin Lunz Trujillo</a>. </p>
<p>“The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision may have initially mobilized some voters in June and July, particularly women, but its effects appear to have diminished when we asked Americans about their intentions to vote again in August and October,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/abortion-is-not-influencing-most-voters-as-the-midterms-approach-economic-issues-are-predominating-in-new-survey-191836">they wrote.</a></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/abortion-is-not-influencing-most-voters-as-the-midterms-approach-economic-issues-are-predominating-in-new-survey-191836">Abortion is not influencing most voters as the midterms approach – economic issues are predominating in new survey</a>
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<h2>3. Elections aren’t what they used to be</h2>
<p>Gone are the days when election administrators were considered low profile, conducting essential – but not flashy – work, like organizing voter lists, staffing polling places and counting election results. </p>
<p>Overall mistrust in elections is high in the U.S. following the 2020 elections – and former President Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat. It’s a new era in politics, where it is not necessarily a given that “elections happen, votes are counted, the winners are declared and democracy moves on,” wrote Arizona State University’s <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FdltMX4AAAAJ&hl=en">Thom Reilly</a>, a public governance scholar and former state election official. </p>
<p>One complicating factor is that the U.S. is the only democracy that elects many of its election officials, and high-ranking members of the Republican or Democratic parties usually oversee elections at the state level. </p>
<p>“That partisan system largely worked until now because, in essence, each party checked the other party’s ability to influence election outcomes. As long as states were politically diverse, members of the two major parties acted in good faith, and this model functioned – albeit imperfectly,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/good-faith-and-the-honor-of-partisan-election-officials-used-to-be-enough-to-ensure-trust-in-voting-results-but-not-anymore-189510">wrote Reilly</a>. </p>
<p>But there’s already evidence that newly minted and highly partisan poll workers and election observers plan to disrupt the elections, potentially diminishing public faith in this essential democratic institution and weakening democracy itself. And a high number of candidates running for state election administration roles are election deniers. If they win, wrote Reilly, that will further erode public confidence in election integrity. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large white sign says 'Vote!' People walk past the sign outside, in what appears to be a green campus with trees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/493339/original/file-20221103-24-oya9b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Young people pass a voting information sign on the Emory University campus in Atlanta on Oct. 14, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/young-people-pass-a-voting-information-sign-on-the-emory-university-picture-id1244204492?s=612x612">Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/good-faith-and-the-honor-of-partisan-election-officials-used-to-be-enough-to-ensure-trust-in-voting-results-but-not-anymore-189510">Good faith and the honor of partisan election officials used to be enough to ensure trust in voting results – but not anymore</a>
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<h2>4. Black voters face possible intimidation</h2>
<p>Amid warnings from the Department of Homeland Security about political violence on Election Day – which University of Maryland, Baltimore County security researcher <a href="https://cybersecurity.umbc.edu/richard-forno/">Richard Forno</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-violence-in-america-isnt-going-away-anytime-soon-193597">recently explored</a> – there’s an increased risk that polling sites will become yet another place for political violence. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/political-violence-in-america-isnt-going-away-anytime-soon-193597">Political violence in America isn't going away anytime soon</a>
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<p>The threat brings to mind <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/voting-rights-for-african-americans/">long-standing efforts</a> by white supremacists to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/10/27/voter-intimidation-surging-2020-protect-minority-voters-column/6043955002/">intimidate and</a> threaten Black voters. </p>
<p>Georgia is one place with a long history of voter intimidation that is rolling out election reform laws, making it actually harder for voters – especially people of color – to vote. One part of this new law, called SB 202, removes some voting drop boxes, which people of color predominantly use. This comes as Black voters gain number and power in Georgia – and the tightened voting rules are reminiscent of the 1940s and other times when white conservatives cracked down on voting rights in response to rising Black political strength.</p>
<p>“The almost immediate passage of new election laws at a time of growing Black political strength suggests the persistence of a white backlash in Georgia,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/georgias-gop-overhauled-the-states-election-laws-in-2021-and-critics-argue-the-target-was-black-voter-turnout-not-election-fraud-192000">wrote</a> Emory University <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard-Doner-2">political science scholar Richard Doner</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/georgias-gop-overhauled-the-states-election-laws-in-2021-and-critics-argue-the-target-was-black-voter-turnout-not-election-fraud-192000">Georgia's GOP overhauled the state's election laws in 2021 – and critics argue the target was Black voter turnout, not election fraud</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Voter demographics and policy priorities are two recurrent, big issues on Election Day – but shifts in election administration and voting laws are new challenges influencing the midterms.Amy Lieberman, Politics + Society Editor, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1908152022-09-26T12:39:17Z2022-09-26T12:39:17ZA seismic change has taken place at the Supreme Court – but it’s not clear if the shift is about principle or party<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486320/original/file-20220923-13751-hqtm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. Supreme Court Building is shown in September 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-exterior-of-the-supreme-court-of-the-united-states-building-in-picture-id1243398495">Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the summer of 2022, the U.S. witnessed a dramatic change in how the majority of Supreme Court justices understand the Constitution. </p>
<p>At the end of a single term, the court <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-revolutionary-ruling-and-not-just-for-abortion-a-supreme-court-scholar-explains-the-impact-of-dobbs-185823">rejected the long-standing constitutional right to abortion</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-sweeps-aside-new-yorks-limits-on-carrying-a-gun-raising-second-amendment-rights-to-new-heights-183486">expanded gun rights</a> and ruled that <a href="https://theconversation.com/religious-liberty-has-a-long-and-messy-history-and-there-is-a-reason-americans-feel-strongly-about-it-186613">religion can have</a> a bigger role in public institutions. </p>
<p>These outcomes reflect a seismic shift in U.S. law and policy, but scholars of the court dispute what kind of change it was, exactly – a principled or partisan one. As a <a href="https://www.springer.com/series/16259">close observer of constitutional politics</a>, I believe this is an important debate with deep consequences for the perceived legitimacy of the court. </p>
<p>Some Supreme Court scholars see the court’s evolution as the rise of “<a href="https://time.com/6192277/supreme-court-originalism/">a profound and principled constitutional theory</a>,” while others see it as “<a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/originalism-run-amok-supreme-court">conservative policy choices in pretentious garb</a>.” </p>
<p>The public’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/confidence-in-the-supreme-court-is-declining-but-there-is-no-easy-way-to-oversee-justices-and-their-politics-187233">confidence</a> in the court, meanwhile, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/394103/confidence-supreme-court-sinks-historic-low.aspx">has fallen</a> after the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/19-1392">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a> abortion ruling to the lowest level since records began in the 1970s. </p>
<p>Public perceptions of the <a href="https://reason.com/volokh/2022/09/20/the-way-to-stop-worrying-about-judicial-legitimacy-is-to-stop-worrying-about-judicial-legitimacy/">the court and its legitimacy</a> may depend on whether citizens see the recent rulings as the victory of one side in a long-standing contest of ideas, or instead simply the triumph of <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/democrats-are-driving-a-nosedive-in-supreme-court-ratings/">partisan politics</a>. </p>
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<img alt="A large crowd of people holding signs related to abortion are seen outside the Supreme Court on a cloudy day" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486307/original/file-20220923-2967-1evnnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486307/original/file-20220923-2967-1evnnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486307/original/file-20220923-2967-1evnnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486307/original/file-20220923-2967-1evnnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486307/original/file-20220923-2967-1evnnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486307/original/file-20220923-2967-1evnnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486307/original/file-20220923-2967-1evnnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People protest in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling outside the Supreme Court Building on June 24, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/people-protest-in-response-to-the-dobbs-v-jackson-womens-health-in-picture-id1404906099">Brandon Bell/Getty Image</a></span>
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<h2>Origins of the current court</h2>
<p>Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, arguably the most liberal of the current justices, characterized the court’s controversial rulings in 2021 as the result of “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-147_g31h.pdf#page=38">a restless and newly constituted court</a>.” </p>
<p>Observers of the new court mostly agree on how it changed, but disagree on what the justices are restless about. </p>
<p>The change has been building over several years, driven by the long-standing <a href="https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/originalism-and-the-rule-of-the-dead">beliefs of</a> the older conservative justices – like Clarence Thomas and Samuel J. Alito – plus the addition of three new conservative justices – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – all three nominated by former president Donald Trump <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/26/trump-legacy-supreme-court-422058">within an unusually brief</a> period of time. </p>
<p>Presidents <a href="https://www.georgewbushlibrary.gov/research/topic-guides/nominations-and-appointments-federal-office">George W. Bush</a> and <a href="https://www.obamalibrary.gov/subject-matter/supreme-court">Barack Obama</a>, for example, each had two nominations over their eight-year presidencies, while Trump helped place three new members on the court within a single four-year term.</p>
<p>These back-to-back appointments created a new supermajority of six conservatives on the court. This altered not only the rulings of the court, but also the selection of cases the court would hear. </p>
<p>The court chooses the few cases it will hear from the <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Certiorari">thousands of applications for review</a>. If there were only five conservative-leaning justices, they could not guarantee they would hold the majority necessary for a final vote. </p>
<p>Often, Chief Justice John Roberts, generally considered an institutionalist determined to safeguard the <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/roberts-is-the-new-swing-justice-that-doesnt-mean-hes-becoming-more-liberal/">public perception of the court</a>, or Gorsuch, widely seen as a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-gorsuch-supreme-court-conservative-20190712-story.html">libertarian-leaning</a> protector of the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-pornography/conservative-u-s-justice-gorsuch-again-sides-with-liberals-in-criminal-case-idUSKCN1TR2WD">rights of criminal defendants</a>, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/04/gorsuch-libertarian-textualist-immigrant-rights.html">immigrants</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/7/10/21318796/supreme-court-mcgirt-oklahoma-native-american-neil-gorsuch">Native Americans</a>, joined the liberals to flip a ruling. </p>
<p>A supermajority of six conservative justices gives them the confidence to take on major cases. Five makes a majority on the Supreme Court, but six can make a movement. </p>
<h2>It is a change in constitutional theory</h2>
<p>One view of the dramatic change at the court is that it reflects a long-running debate between two constitutional theories, or competing ways of reading the document. </p>
<p>The new court upholds <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/white-papers/on-originalism-in-constitutional-interpretation">originalism</a>, which has replaced its rival, <a href="https://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2018/11/legal-theory-lexicon-living-constitutionalism.html">living constitutionalism</a>.</p>
<p>The theory <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-originalism-did-it-underpin-the-supreme-courts-ruling-on-abortion-and-guns-debunking-the-myths-186440">of originalism</a> argues that the core purpose of a written Constitution is to protect against the government’s inevitable bad behavior. The best way to defend individual rights and ensure a stable government is to enforce the Constitution’s exact language and the meaning it expressed to the Americans who ratified it. </p>
<p>From an originalist view, allowing clever lawyers to see the Constitution as evolving without the endorsement of the people simply defeats its purpose. So this constitutional theory holds that the document can only be changed by amendment, but not by courts.</p>
<p>The theory of <a href="https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/living-constitution">living constitutionalism</a>, meanwhile, is rooted in the idea that the Constitution should adapt to the American people’s evolving values, as well as the needs of contemporary society. This allows the Supreme Court to reinterpret the meaning of the language and expand the rights protected by the Constitution. </p>
<p>One side of the debate believes that upholding the true meaning of a written Constitution requires stable principles, while the second believes it requires evolving ones. </p>
<p>The two ways of reading the Constitution are not reconcilable.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486206/original/file-20220923-34255-yn67m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white woman with brown hair and a black dress stands next to a man in military uniform, who stands next to another white man with a black robe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486206/original/file-20220923-34255-yn67m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486206/original/file-20220923-34255-yn67m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486206/original/file-20220923-34255-yn67m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486206/original/file-20220923-34255-yn67m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486206/original/file-20220923-34255-yn67m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486206/original/file-20220923-34255-yn67m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486206/original/file-20220923-34255-yn67m8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh attend the State of the Union address in March 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/supreme-court-justices-amy-coney-barrett-john-roberts-brett-m-and-g-picture-id1238865241">Saul Loeb - Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>It is partisan politics</h2>
<p>The second view of what happened during the court’s last term is that the shift was not about honest constitutional debate, but instead about partisan politics. In this view, the justices are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWRJiC5L744">politicians in robes</a> who pursue the policy goals of their party. This means that when the Republican appointees gained the majority in the court, GOP preferences followed.</p>
<p>Partisans know which school of thought is more likely to give them the outcomes they want.</p>
<p>Over the last few decades, partisanship has become a stronger force in shaping the nomination process. President Richard Nixon, for example, was a Republican who nominated Supreme Court <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/harry_a_blackmun">Justice Harry Blackmun</a>, who went on to write the liberal majority opinion <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18">for Roe v. Wade</a> in 1973. </p>
<p>But today, justices nominated by Republican or Democratic presidents are chosen with much more care, with the aid of outside groups like the conservative <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/01/how-the-federalist-society-became-the-de-facto-selector-of-republican-supreme-court-justices.html">Federalist Society</a>. </p>
<p>The partisan view encourages people to see constitutional questions as they often view politics – simply ways of dodging principles while pushing ideological agendas. It characterizes the justices as pawns and constitutional debates as smokescreens. </p>
<p>That perception may actually be accurate about some of the justices, some of the time. But it is also surely not true about most of the justices, most of the time.</p>
<p>Perhaps the worst result of the partisan view is that interpreting the Constitution becomes about merely group identity, with Democrats and Republicans cynically stuck in permanent camps. This makes crucial public deliberations about the constitutional foundations of a free society nearly impossible. </p>
<p>The focus on constitutional theory argues that when debate is not about principle, it ought to be, while the partisan view argues that even when it seems to be, it is not.</p>
<p>Constitutional debate goes back and forth as the control of the court shifts. Over time, it will likely shift again, while the partisan view in the long term degrades the legitimacy of a correct, as well as incorrect, court.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Marietta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Major Supreme Court decisions and reversals last term are leaving some people, including this scholar on constitutional politics, wondering – what’s going on with the court?Morgan Marietta, Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1886812022-09-19T12:21:56Z2022-09-19T12:21:56ZProposed federal abortion ban evokes 19th-century Comstock Act – a law so unpopular it triggered the centurylong backlash that led to Roe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484620/original/file-20220914-25-zu0a8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5000%2C3335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A sign at a July 2022 abortion-rights protest in Santa Monica, California, recalls the country's long history of trying to restrict access to reproductive health care. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-of-lizelle-herrera-is-carried-during-a-protest-march-news-photo/1241944944?adppopup=true"> David McNew/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sen. Lindsey Graham has proposed a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/09/13/lindsey-graham-national-abortion-restrictions-bill">national U.S. abortion ban</a> barring the procedure after 15 weeks. This push to restrict abortion access across the country follows a rash of new state laws passed by Republicans after the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/dobbs-v-jackson-womens-health-organization/">Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade</a> in June. </p>
<p>If American history is any guide, these efforts will ultimately neither reduce abortions nor remain settled law. </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N4nlBvMAAAAJ&hl=en">historian</a> who has studied American culture and law in the wake of the 1873 Comstock Act – the first U.S. effort to restrict access to birth control and abortions. My research finds that previous state and federal efforts to regulate the sexual expression and reproduction of Americans led to unintended consequences – and, in the long term, these laws failed.</p>
<p>Already, I see signs that new anti-abortion laws are triggering a similarly undermining backlash. </p>
<h2>How ‘obscene’</h2>
<p>In 1873, Congress hurriedly passed a law making it <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1038/comstock-act-of-1873">illegal to send</a> “obscenities” through the U.S. mail. The legislation was branded the Comstock Act after its most vigorous proponent: <a href="https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/online-exhibits/history-of-birth-control/contraception-in-america-1800-1900/anthony-comstocks-influence/">Anthony Comstock</a>, a U.S. postal inspector and evangelical Christian who believed sexual activity was a sin unless it occurred between a married man and woman for the purpose of procreation. </p>
<p>Birth control and substances used to induce abortion were included in the definition of “obscenity,” because Comstock and his supporters believed that life and death were God’s decisions. The law also banned mailing erotic images and literature. In Comstock’s expansive view, this category included <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43609326">images of athletes wearing tights</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478951/original/file-20220812-4591-btzygl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white drawing showing a rotund man with a mustache dragging a limp woman behind him to a judge's bench in a courtroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478951/original/file-20220812-4591-btzygl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478951/original/file-20220812-4591-btzygl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478951/original/file-20220812-4591-btzygl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478951/original/file-20220812-4591-btzygl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478951/original/file-20220812-4591-btzygl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478951/original/file-20220812-4591-btzygl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478951/original/file-20220812-4591-btzygl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1915 comic skewering the Comstock laws.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dlib.nyu.edu/themasses/books/masses054">The Masses</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>State versions of the original Comstock Law soon swept the United States. By 1900, 42 states had passed <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1906208">similar legislation</a> outlawing the production, sale, possession or circulation of “obscene” matter in their own jurisdictions. </p>
<p>These statutes ruled until the Supreme Court declared a right to privacy in medical decision-making nearly 100 years later, in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/">Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)</a>. </p>
<p>This is the same ruling that was cited eight years later to protect the right to have an abortion in the now defunct <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113">Roe v. Wade</a>.</p>
<h2>Impractical enforcement</h2>
<p>Comstock zealously enforced the laws he’d advocated for, both as a detective for the privately funded New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, and as an inspector for the U.S. Post Office Department. In attempting to eradicate contraceptives – including condoms and early forms of diaphragms – Comstock organized the arrests of numerous defendants. </p>
<p>However, he had difficulty getting prosecutors, juries and judges to see the seriousness of many of the “crimes” he investigated. In the late 19th century, wealthier Americans already <a href="https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/online-exhibits/history-of-birth-control/contraception-in-america-1800-1900/19th-century-artifacts/">regularly used birth control</a>. </p>
<p>“Of all the indictments prior to 1878, pending in the Court of General Sessions, not one has been tried the past year,” Comstock wrote in his 1879 annual report for the society.</p>
<p>In one of these cases, <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1878/07/11/80722044.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0">The New York Times reported</a>, Comstock was chastised by a New York City district attorney named Phelps for his “sharp practice” in investigating Dr. Sarah Blakeslee Chase. These included his posing as a client to obtain birth control products and repeatedly harassing the suspect. A grand jury threw out the case, stating that it “did not think it for the public good.” </p>
<p>Even when Comstock obtained a conviction, many defendants were pardoned immediately. </p>
<p>Enforcing new anti-abortion laws is similarly unpopular with many legal professionals today. Shortly after the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Dobbs, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/us/abortion-enforcement-prosecutors.html">more than 80 elected prosecutors</a> vowed not to bring indictments in cases involving abortion. </p>
<p>As they recognize, conservative courts in jurisdictions with zealous anti-abortion prosecutors – who <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2022/09/pregnant-women-held-for-months-in-one-alabama-jail-to-protect-fetuses-from-drugs.html">in some states are already enforcing new laws</a> – will soon be filled with a host of extremely sympathetic defendants: relatives who assist <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/14/10-year-old-abortion/">children who are victims of rape</a> in obtaining an illegal abortion, <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/doctors-fearing-legal-blowback-are-denying-life-saving-abortions">doctors saving the lives of mothers at risk</a>, and those who choose to help <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/health/pregnant-woman-cancer-abortion.html">pregnant cancer patients</a> in making the best possible decisions for their health. </p>
<p>Enforcement of America’s new Comstock laws will likely once again make witnesses and defendants more sympathetic in the eyes of judges and jurors – and the public – undermining whatever support remains for these laws. </p>
<p>Beyond prosecutions, the tactics necessary to prevent women from obtaining abortions are even less practical today than they were in the late 19th century. </p>
<p>Enforcing anti-abortion laws may include <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/insterstate-travel-abortion-post-roe/">restricting interstate travel</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/medical-abortions-mifepristone-misoprostol-illegal.html">blocking interstate and international postal services</a> and attempting to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/07/01/roe-battlefield-online-abortion-information">censor information</a> about sexual health. All of these would require laborious investigations and extensive cooperation from law enforcement agencies and private corporations who will likely have little desire to involve themselves in unpopular prosecutions. </p>
<p>And that’s assuming that any of these methods survive court challenges. </p>
<h2>Uniting disparate factions</h2>
<p>By the time of Anthony Comstock’s death in 1915, backlash to his zealous overreach had provoked <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537781420000304">growing solidarity</a> among activists and attorneys determined to defeat his agenda. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484616/original/file-20220914-6106-v30h3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman sits in a chair being tended to by a nurse, standing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484616/original/file-20220914-6106-v30h3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484616/original/file-20220914-6106-v30h3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484616/original/file-20220914-6106-v30h3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484616/original/file-20220914-6106-v30h3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484616/original/file-20220914-6106-v30h3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484616/original/file-20220914-6106-v30h3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484616/original/file-20220914-6106-v30h3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Margaret Sanger at America’s first family planning clinic in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/birth-control-activist-margaret-sanger-consults-with-fania-news-photo/588649364?adppopup=true">Bain News Service/PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women’s rights activists, including Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman and Mary Ware Dennett – formerly focused on competing goals and strategies – joined in common cause to repeal the Comstock laws. Their efforts led to the creation of new and powerful national civil liberties organizations, including Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union. Both used lobbying and lawsuits to contribute to the death of the original Comstock laws.</p>
<p>These groups are <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/aclu-planned-parenthood-file-lawsuit-against-ohio-over-abortion-rights/ar-AA11pwZM">still fighting</a> new abortion restrictions today. And once again, post-Dobbs, disparate individuals and groups are raising their voices in common cause. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/22/doctors-abortion-state-capitals-00052946">Obstetricians</a> from around the country have begun lobbying politicians and forming their own pro-choice political action committees for the first time. TikTok influencers like <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@0liviajulianna?lang=en&itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template">Olivia Julianna</a> are rallying young citizens to vote for pro-choice politicians. And <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/28/23186432/abortion-roe-scotus-howard-stern-my-favorite-murder-podcast">diverse podcasters</a>, from one-time provocateur Howard Stern to the hosts of the true crime show “My Favorite Murder,” are sharing resources with their listeners and expressing support for abortion rights. </p>
<h2>Ballot box backlash</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/25/upshot/female-voters-dobbs.html">Newly registered</a> and energized voters are turning out to support candidates and ballot initiatives that reflect the nation’s <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/">majority support for abortion rights</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/02/us/elections/results-kansas-abortion-amendment.html">Kansas roundly rejected an anti-abortion referendum in August 2022</a>. And more states will soon vote on state constitutional protections for abortion, <a href="https://www.wxpr.org/politics-government/2022-09-12/michigan-dems-hope-for-boost-from-abortion-ballot-initiative">including Michigan</a>.</p>
<p>The Comstock laws were not repealed quickly. And it’s now clear that American women’s right to reproductive health care remained tenuous after their demise. </p>
<p>Viewing the past as prologue, however, suggests that, once again, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases-2/">unpopular</a> anti-abortion laws will cause unintended consequences that, in the long run, will render them both ineffective and ultimately futile.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188681/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Werbel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>US history suggests that Republican efforts to restrict reproductive rights will be difficult to enforce and widely reviled, undermining their effectiveness – and ultimately causing their demise.Amy Werbel, Professor of the History of Art, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884912022-08-29T18:21:28Z2022-08-29T18:21:28ZThe U.S. Supreme Court failed to uphold American ideals of liberty and equality in abortion ruling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480458/original/file-20220822-65891-e50v65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abortion-rights activists gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in June 2022 after the court ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nearly two months have passed since the Supreme Court of the United States returned its judgment in <em>Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</em> — the now infamous decision <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ussc-dobbs-abortion-ruling-1.6495637">that reversed half a century of established law</a> on a woman’s right to abortion.</p>
<p>The majority opinion in <em>Dobbs</em> is <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/the-supreme-courts-wrong-turn-on-constitutional-rights">rife with contradictions and questionable legal reasoning</a>. The <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/06/30/dobbs-another-frontline-for-health-equity/">material harm that many women will suffer as a consequence</a> is undeniable. </p>
<p>But from a constitutional perspective, the theory the court used to arrive at its judgment poses the gravest danger. </p>
<h2>Originalism vs living constitutionalism</h2>
<p>Constitutional scholars have long been charting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/magazine/how-will-trumps-supreme-court-remake-america.html">the Supreme Court’s transition away from a living reading of the U.S. Constitution toward an originalist one</a>.</p>
<p>Those who subscribe to an <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/white-papers/on-originalism-in-constitutional-interpretation">originalist reading of the Constitution</a> believe that courts act illegitimately wherever they try to creatively apply its provisions to modern times. Since it would be undemocratic for an unelected judiciary to “invent” the law, courts must limit themselves to the retrieval of constitutional principles from the text of the Constitution itself.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-originalism-debunking-the-myths-148488">What is originalism? Debunking the myths</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://dlj.law.duke.edu/2017/06/living-constitutional-theory/">Living constitution theorists</a> defend the opposite perspective. Since much of the U.S. Constitution was written more than 200 years ago, they argue that binding the current generation to the intentions of its drafters not only undermines the sovereignty of the people living today but impedes any progress the nation has made throughout its history.</p>
<p>It’s along these fault lines that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/24/us/politics/supreme-court-dobbs-jackson-analysis-roe-wade.html">the majority and dissenting opinions in <em>Dobbs</em> took shape</a>.</p>
<p>According to the majority of Supreme Court justices, “constitutional analysis must begin with ‘the language of the instrument,’ which offers a ‘fixed standard’ for ascertaining what our founding document means.” And because “the Constitution makes no reference to abortion,” they argued, any claim that the document confers a right to it must be rejected.</p>
<p>The dissenting justices took the opposite tack. They acknowledged that “those responsible for the original Constitution… did not perceive women as equals, and [therefore] did not recognize women’s rights” — but added that this alone doesn’t invalidate the constitutionality of a right to abortion. The right to abortion, they argued, is a product of the country’s constitutional history.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman protester carries a sign that reads Our Rights Are Not Up For Debate" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480457/original/file-20220822-66616-m1t183.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480457/original/file-20220822-66616-m1t183.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480457/original/file-20220822-66616-m1t183.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480457/original/file-20220822-66616-m1t183.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480457/original/file-20220822-66616-m1t183.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480457/original/file-20220822-66616-m1t183.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480457/original/file-20220822-66616-m1t183.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abortion-rights protesters march on Capitol Hill, with the U.S. Capitol in the background, after protesting at the Supreme Court in June 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How rights develop over time</h2>
<p>Originalists have a point on one front — it would be illegitimate for a court to simply concoct a right out of thin air. But to suggest this is what courts do when they interpret a country’s constitution misrepresents how rights develop over time.</p>
<p>Constitutions are not made up of a random collection of rules. They have integrity. Ideally, the different parts of a constitution will work to reinforce its other parts, rendering a complete vision that a nation can consult as it charts a course into the future.</p>
<p>From the start, <a href="https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/liberty-and-equality-today">the U.S. Constitution was organized around two core principles: liberty and equality</a>. These represented the defining ideals for the country. From these ideals, certain commitments followed. </p>
<p>Consider the 1954 Supreme Court decision on <em><a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/brown-v-board-of-education">Brown v. Board of Education</a></em> to reverse an earlier judgment affirming <a href="https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-beginning-end-separate-equal">the constitutionality of the separate-but-equal doctrine</a> — the legal mechanism that segregated white and Black schoolchildren in many parts of the United States throughout the first half of the 20th century. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People stand in front of a court building holding banners that pay tribute to the 60th anniversary of a landmark court decision." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480459/original/file-20220822-77906-e3lzru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480459/original/file-20220822-77906-e3lzru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480459/original/file-20220822-77906-e3lzru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480459/original/file-20220822-77906-e3lzru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480459/original/file-20220822-77906-e3lzru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480459/original/file-20220822-77906-e3lzru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480459/original/file-20220822-77906-e3lzru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2014 photo, students, parents and educators are seen at a rally at the Supreme Court on the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision that struck down ‘separate but equal’ laws that kept schools segregated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reasoning the court used in the Brown decision didn’t revolve around the moral wickedness of the doctrine itself — though wicked it surely was. Instead it focused on the constitutional commitments the United States had acquired over time. </p>
<p>In essence, the court explained that the nation could not simultaneously tolerate the separate-but-equal treatment of a certain section of its population while maintaining a commitment to the principle of equality. The two things were irreconcilable.</p>
<p>The constitutional commitments of a nation ensure rights once unrecognized can become recognized at a particular moment in time. Through the piecemeal advances that are made in any area of law, a country’s constitutional commitments are revealed and evolve. The role of Supreme Courts is merely to ensure those commitments are reflected in the laws by which people are governed.</p>
<h2><em>Dobbs</em> dissent</h2>
<p>From a constitutional perspective, the dissenting justices in <em>Dobbs</em> were correct.</p>
<p>Not only is the right to abortion a recognized right in the U.S. Constitution, it is deeply embedded in its fabric. To deny a woman the right to choose in an area so intimate to her, concerning a choice that carries such profound consequences over her life, is to deny her status as a free and equal person. Nothing could be further from the core constitutional commitments of the United States. </p>
<p>A country that turns its back on these commitments — liberty and equality, in the case of the United States — is at risk of losing its vision. And without a vision, even the most basic terms of the social contract begin to dissolve.</p>
<p>The constitutional legacy of <em>Dobbs</em> is that it has brought America one step closer to this kind of social collapse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188491/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoff Callaghan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The U.S. Supreme Court turned its back on America’s core constitutional ideals — liberty and equality— when it erroneously ruled women have no constitutional right to abortion.Geoff Callaghan, Assistant Professor, Political Science, University of WindsorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1864522022-07-22T12:29:30Z2022-07-22T12:29:30ZHow a 1989 poster became a fixture on the front lines in the battle over abortion rights<p>For abortion rights advocates, Barbara Kruger’s iconic feminist image “<a href="https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger/untitled-your-body-battleground">Untitled (Your body is a battleground)</a>” remains as relevant today as when it was first released in 1989.</p>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473">May 2, 2022, leak</a> of Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s anti-abortion draft decision, <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2022-04-24%202022-05-08&geo=US&q=barbara%20kruger">Google searches for Kruger spiked</a>. <a href="https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2022-06-17%202022-07-01&geo=US&q=barbara%20kruger">Searches spiked again</a> after the official ruling was released on June 24, 2022. </p>
<p>A leading pioneer of <a href="https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/pop-art/appropriation/">appropriation art</a>, Kruger leveraged her skills as a graphic designer to make works of art from readily available images. Art critic Isabelle Graw <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/20711456">describes Kruger’s signature style</a> as “grainy black-and-white photographs with a typical typeface (Futura Bold Italic) in red-and-black blocks of text-like color fields.”</p>
<p>Riffing off <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/culture-magazines/1980s-print-culture">the print culture of the 1980s and 1990s</a>, Kruger’s art combined images and text to parody advertisements that used a <a href="https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*kFkcrWgXg8-a-BwZBy9bgA.png">second-person voice</a> to entice potential consumers. </p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger/untitled-your-body-battleground">Untitled (Your body is a battleground)</a>,” Kruger slightly altered the photograph of the original sitter. By splitting this subject’s face into positive and negative halves, Kruger shows how anti-abortion activists cut battle lines into women’s bodies.</p>
<p>Kruger’s original poster has seamlessly transitioned to social media, inspiring a new generation of media-savvy reproductive justice artists and activists.</p>
<h2>Dissemination and evolution</h2>
<p>In 1989, the Supreme Court reviewed a 1986 case related to a Missouri law that hindered access to abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. The law also restricted the use of public funds and buildings for abortion counseling and procedures. Abortion-rights activists responded with a planned <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/09/us/abortion-marchers-gather-in-capital.html">March for Women’s Lives</a> in Washington. </p>
<p>In the early morning hours before the march, Kruger and some of her students illegally plastered New York City with flyers featuring “Untitled (Your body is a battleground).” The original flyer provided logistical information about the march and details about the upcoming Supreme Court case.</p>
<p>Kruger <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hj75h.18">also used the same image</a> in another 1989 poster. That version, commissioned by the French government on the bicentennial of the French Revolution, appeared with the French text “Savoir C'est Pouvoir,” which translates to “Knowledge is Power” and recalls the <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/consciousness-raising-groups-and-the-womens-movement/">consciousness-raising</a> strategies of 1970s feminism. </p>
<p>Since then, variations of “Untitled (Your body is a battleground)” have been exhibited in various forms and languages in museums and galleries. They’ve also popped up on mugs, T-shirts and other merchandise.</p>
<p>Kruger has been involved in some of this dissemination, including the 1990 billboard variation commissioned by The Ohio State University’s Wexner Center for the Arts, which installed it <a href="https://publicartfund.tumblr.com/post/26832733541/barbara-kruger-multi-year-public-art-fund-artist">adjacent to an anti-abortion billboard</a> in Columbus.</p>
<p>In 2019, in response to <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2019/12/state-policy-trends-2019-wave-abortion-bans-some-states-are-fighting-back">continued legislative assaults on abortion rights</a>, Kruger made a <a href="https://youtu.be/1HXJ2eYCnxI">video version</a> of the “Battleground” image, updating the original work to reflect the proliferation of digital media. After the leak of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson, she again altered it for the cover of the May 9, 2022, issue of New York Magazine.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1523636371470045184"}"></div></p>
<p>Regarding the revised New York Magazine cover text – “Who becomes a ‘MURDERER’ in post-Roe America?” – Kruger <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/barbara-kruger-body-battleground-2112283">predicted</a> that the ruling will create a dilemma: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The issue of who gets charged with ‘murder’ will be a challenge for the right to finesse … Is the ‘little lady’ capable of making that decision, or does the doctor or medical facility do the time or worse because the woman can’t possibly be capable of making the decision on her own?” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Activists take the baton</h2>
<p>For decades, activists have relied on Kruger’s aesthetics. In some cases, they’ve repurposed her actual artwork. In others, they’ve simply borrowed stylistic elements. </p>
<p>In 1991 and 1992, the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw produced <a href="https://obieg.pl/en/209-barbara-kruger-s-poster-and-the-frontline-in-the-culture-war">a Polish-language version</a>. When the Polish courts <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/world/europe/poland-tribunal-abortions.html">outlawed</a> nearly all abortions in 2020, the TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin launched another poster campaign. In 2021, the organization Sanitation First India released a “Krugerizing” selfie filter for Instagram to promote <a href="https://origin.dazeddigital.com/beauty/article/52935/1/star-in-your-own-barbara-kruger-artwork-to-support-menstrual-education">Menstrual Hygiene Day</a>.</p>
<p>Recent responses to Dobbs v. Jackson draw on Kruger’s characteristic text-and-image dissemination tactics. </p>
<p>In New York City, anonymous activists have twice hung large <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1107717283/abortion-rights-green-symbol">green banners</a> with text in white, capital, sans serif letters. They draped a 30-foot-tall sign proclaiming “ABORTION = LIBERTY” from the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and <a href="https://twitter.com/OskarNupia/status/1540434969562071041">later from the Manhattan Bridge</a>. Less than a week later, <a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/news/activists-cover-anti-abortion-billboard-with-pro-choice-message-in-detroit-30456163">a banner with a similar aesthetic</a> covered a anti-abortion billboard in Detroit, asserting, “<a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/news/activists-cover-anti-abortion-billboard-with-pro-choice-message-in-detroit-30456163">WE WILL AID & ABET ABORTION</a>.” Visually, the work borrows directly from Kruger’s “<a href="https://i0.wp.com/totally-la.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/who-buys-the-con.jpg?resize=960%2C641&ssl=1">Untitled (Who Buys The Con?)</a>.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1542941337128951808"}"></div></p>
<p>Like Kruger, artist Alicia Eggert has also chosen a medium associated with advertising for her activist artwork. In her installation piece “<a href="https://news.cvad.unt.edu/faculty-eggert-alicia-ours-sign">OURS</a>,” she uses pink neon signs that flash three phrases: “OUR BODIES,” “OUR FUTURES” and “OUR ABORTIONS.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/02/04/abortion-rights-planned-parenthood-neon-art-alicia-eggert">She installed it</a> on the steps of the Supreme Court building in January 2022 to mark the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the work continues to travel around the country.</p>
<h2>The importance of public art</h2>
<p>Kruger’s images inspire viewers around the world because they exist outside of the elite spaces of museums and galleries. </p>
<p>Writer and poet Adam Heardman cites the importance of situating political art in <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/#EarDevHabIntPubSphRea">the public sphere</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.proquest.com/artbibliographies/docview/2509694831/abstract/F9EB8B918F3F40DDPQ/4">Heardman writes</a> that Kruger saw the concentration of corporate power as a direct threat to individuals, particularly women and minorities. To resist corporate America’s efforts to create a single, homogeneous consumer, she wrested advertising tactics from them to quickly and effectively communicate the hopes and fears of marginalized people, enabling the voices of those demanding justice to go viral.</p>
<p>Given the battle ahead to regain the right to abortion, we expect many more artists and activists to draw from Kruger’s work for inspiration, strategy and strength.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Sign with black and white image of woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473927/original/file-20220713-9316-rrzb69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473927/original/file-20220713-9316-rrzb69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473927/original/file-20220713-9316-rrzb69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473927/original/file-20220713-9316-rrzb69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473927/original/file-20220713-9316-rrzb69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473927/original/file-20220713-9316-rrzb69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473927/original/file-20220713-9316-rrzb69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protester holds a sign featuring ‘Star Wars’ character Princess Leia made in the style of Kruger’s iconic ‘Battleground’ poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-carrie-fisher-as-princess-leia-is-displayed-news-photo/1240707306?adppopup=true">Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barbara Kruger’s ‘Untitled (Your body is a battleground)’ has seamlessly transitioned to social media, inspiring a new generation of media-savvy artists and activists.John Corso-Esquivel, Associate Professor of Art History, Davidson CollegeLia Rose Newman, Curator and Director of the Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1863532022-07-18T10:58:24Z2022-07-18T10:58:24ZUK abortion laws are more precarious than they seem – replacing the Human Rights Act could unsettle them further<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474256/original/file-20220715-22-c54j9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C0%2C5431%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-england-october-2019-view-on-1535678198">zjtmath / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The state of abortion laws in the US has many in the UK wondering about reproductive rights in their own country. While abortion is largely accessible in the UK, its legal status is more precarious than many understand. Whichever government is in power next, it has the ability to either solidify abortion access or put it further into jeopardy. With this in mind, the next prime minister should reconsider plans to replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with the proposed bill of rights.</p>
<p>In June 2022, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab introduced the <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3227">bill of rights bill</a>, which, if passed, will repeal and replace the Human Rights Act. When asked about inserting a right to abortion in the bill of rights, Raab said this wasn’t necessary, claiming that abortion is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/29/dominic-raab-says-right-to-abortion-does-not-need-to-be-in-bill-of-rights">“settled in UK law”</a>. Without the Human Rights Act, however, abortion in the UK is far from settled. </p>
<p>This is because no law created by parliament is ever truly settled. This is a principle of the British constitution known as parliamentary sovereignty. Parliament is free to pass laws on any issue without being limited by an existing law created by a previous parliament, or any court. This differs from the US, where courts can strike down laws if they conflict with the constitution. </p>
<p>Applied to abortion, this means parliament can legislate any new abortion laws it desires. No court of law or authority could prevent parliament from arriving at a new legal position that would restrict or prohibit abortion access. </p>
<p>The legal status of abortion access in the UK, through the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/contents">Abortion Act 1967</a>, is more precarious than common understanding. Having an abortion is still a criminal act. A <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/crossheading/attempts-to-procure-abortion">19th-century law</a>, which remains in place, states that any woman who intends to cause her own miscarriage commits a criminal offence that can result in life imprisonment. </p>
<p>The Abortion Act merely creates a limited exception when two doctors agree that the abortion is necessary and approve the procedure within 24 weeks of conception. At least two women in England and Wales are <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2d9c2058-0501-11ed-bcb4-08dbdb6c5639?">currently being prosecuted</a> for illegally procuring abortions.</p>
<p>Separate legislation, passed in 2019, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/345/contents/made">removes criminality for abortion in Northern Ireland</a>. Still, due to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, this legislation lacks any degree of permanency. The right to access abortion in Northern Ireland remains as fragile as in the rest of the UK. </p>
<p>The law granting a right to abortion access in Northern Ireland is re-voted on every year in the House of Commons. Votes in <a href="https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/798">2020</a>, <a href="https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/1022">2021</a> and <a href="https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/1324">2022</a> show that around 25% of MPs are consistently opposed to abortion rights. If political winds change in the future, this percentage might increase and bring forward the true extent of this fragility. </p>
<h2>Abortion and the Human Rights Act</h2>
<p>Raab’s claim that abortion law is settled might have been based on European human rights law, which applies in the UK through the Human Rights Act. However, this would be incorrect – European human rights law, so far, has offered only minimal protection to abortion access. The right to private and family life enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) protects personal autonomy and bodily integrity. </p>
<p>Because the issue of abortion raises difficult moral questions over when life begins, the European Court of Human Rights has left it to each country to determine its own laws on abortion. This approach has been applied to other issues <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22appno%22:%5B%2230141/04%22%5D,%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-99605%22%5D%7D">including same-sex marriage</a>. Baroness Hale, during her time on the supreme court, remarked that the European court has given countries an “unusual” amount of leeway to determine their abortion laws. </p>
<p>The European court has made it clear that where a pregnancy would directly endanger a pregnant person’s life, their safety must take priority over the life of the foetus. Nonetheless, the court has yet to intervene in countries with restrictive abortion laws, such as <a href="https://oltem1bixlohb0d4busw018c-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/15381_CRR_Europe_V8.pdf">Malta, Liechtenstein or Poland</a>.</p>
<h2>Domestic law and the power of the courts</h2>
<p>Domestic human rights law, on the other hand, offers some support to Raab’s claim of abortion being settled. In a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2017-0131-judgment.pdf">2018 ruling</a>, the UK supreme court held that domestic laws restricting access to abortions in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality would be interpreted as being incompatible with the ECHR right to private and family life. </p>
<p>This interpretation of the right to privacy effectively limited Parliament’s ability to pass more restrictive abortion laws. But it was only possible due to the Human Rights Act, which grants UK judges interpretive powers when it comes to human rights law.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Dominic Raab mid-speech in front of a UK flag and an EU flag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474270/original/file-20220715-24-bp9ebb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474270/original/file-20220715-24-bp9ebb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474270/original/file-20220715-24-bp9ebb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474270/original/file-20220715-24-bp9ebb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474270/original/file-20220715-24-bp9ebb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474270/original/file-20220715-24-bp9ebb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474270/original/file-20220715-24-bp9ebb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is spearheading the plan to replace the Human Rights Act.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brussels-belgium-july-19-2018-britains-1137924083">Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The new bill of rights purports to enhance UK courts’ ability to make judgments like the one described above, by declaring that European Court of Human Rights case law will no longer be “part of domestic law”.</p>
<p>But what it actually does is restrict the courts’ powers when it comes to the European Convention on Human Rights. The bill only permits the creation or expansion of new rights when domestic courts view it as being “beyond reasonable doubt” that the European Court will change its previous decided position on the issue. </p>
<p>There is presently not enough evidence to suggest “beyond reasonable doubt” that the European court will change its current legal framework on abortion. This would mean that under the bill of rights, a future UK supreme court would be prevented from reading Article 8 as requiring access to abortion in certain cases, as it did in 2018. Domestic courts would no longer be able to protect access to abortion in the UK and would return the issue almost entirely to parliament and political winds.</p>
<p>While there might be some support for the claim that abortion is sufficiently protected in law, this will be greatly undermined if the Human Rights Act is repealed. The next prime minister could commit to including a provision within the Bill of Rights specifically aimed at protecting abortion rights – or even better, reverse course entirely and keep the Human Rights Act in place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The next prime minister has an opportunity to make abortion rights more or less secure in UK law.Jamie Fletcher, Lecturer in Law, Bournemouth UniversityKarolina Szopa, Lecturer in Law, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1868022022-07-15T12:18:04Z2022-07-15T12:18:04ZMore young voters could come out to vote in November, sparked by abortion and other hot political issues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473948/original/file-20220713-9360-2l5kus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=263%2C95%2C3712%2C2502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abortion-rights activists gather in front of the Supreme Court in May 2022 ahead of the Dobbs decision. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/prochoice-demonstrators-gather-in-front-of-the-us-supreme-court-in-picture-id1240609506?s=2048x2048">Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">decision to overturn</a> the constitutional right to abortion has far-reaching personal and political implications and may help decide the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/upshot/poll-2022-midterms-congress.html">midterm elections</a> in November 2022.</p>
<p>That influence extends to young people’s election participation. People ages 18 to 29 have <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/our-research/broadening-youth-voting">historically been less likely to vote than older adults</a>. But in recent years, they have been spurred to organize and vote by major national controversies, like school shootings and police violence against Black people.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/">researcher with more than 20 years of experience</a> tracking youth voting and examining young people’s political views and engagement, I believe that the fight over abortion rights now taking place in states has strong potential to motivate and mobilize young voters on both sides of the issue – and that their participation could be decisive in key races around the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sign says 'I voted' in a voting room, with one young man walking holding a ballot" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473949/original/file-20220713-9316-1arfo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voters cast their ballots at Santa Monica College in September 2021 to vote on whether California Gov. Gavin Newsom should remain in office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/students-staff-and-nearby-residents-cast-their-ballots-at-ucla-union-picture-id1235261789?s=2048x2048">Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Young people are supportive of abortion rights</h2>
<p>About <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/">62% of Americans</a> support abortion’s being legal in all or most cases, according to Pew Research polling from July 2022. But that view is even more widely held among people ages 18 to 29 – 70% of people in that age group support legal abortion.</p>
<p>Other recent polling puts young people’s support for abortion even higher – a CBS/YouGov survey conducted in June 2022, shortly after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, found that <a href="https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/hrccnn75ps/cbsnews_20220626_recontact.pdf">78% of young people favor legal abortion</a>.</p>
<p>Young people are also the most likely age group to disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/">Sixty-nine percent of young people disapprove of the ruling</a>, compared with 60% of adults ages 30 to 49 and half of Americans older than 49. </p>
<p>Women and people of color across all age groups – especially Black and Asian Americans – are also more likely than men and white people to disapprove of the Supreme Court’s ruling.</p>
<p>That’s notable because young women and young women of color, in particular, have led civic and electoral participation in recent years. <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/2020-youth-voter-turnout-raceethnicity-and-gender">Young women voted at a higher rate than young men in 2020</a>. <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/young-women-color-continue-lead-civic-and-political-engagement">Young women of color were more likely</a> to talk to their peers about politics, attend demonstrations and register others to vote than young white women.</p>
<p>Nearly half of young women said that they supported or were active participants in the reproductive rights movement, <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/young-womens-political-engagement-elections-and-beyond">according to my 2018 survey</a> of people ages 18 to 24. Women of color were more likely to be involved in the reproductive rights movement than young white women, our survey found. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young white people hold up signs bearing slogans such as 'Roe is dead' outside the Supreme Court building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474006/original/file-20220713-13035-u0f7at.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-abortion protesters demonstrate outside the Supreme Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/prolife-supporters-celebrate-outside-the-us-supreme-court-in-dc-on-picture-id1241500916?s=2048x2048">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Many young people want action on abortion</h2>
<p>For some young people, political engagement goes beyond abortion, as <a href="https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/spring-2022-harvard-youth-poll">a spring 2022 Harvard poll</a> found that about half of young people think the country is on the wrong track. </p>
<p>And 41% of 18-to-29-year-olds surveyed in another poll <a href="https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/hrccnn75ps/cbsnews_20220626_recontact.pdf">say the Dobbs decision</a> makes them more likely to vote in the midterms. In the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/">Pew Research survey mentioned above</a>, over two-thirds of those under 30 reported at least somewhat disapproving of the court decision. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/change-research-midterms-vibe-check">Other surveys</a> suggest that specific policies and laws to protect abortion access are top priorities to young voters.</p>
<p>When young people want action on issues they care about, like abortion, they can feel motivated to push political leaders. Their <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2022/06/13/biden-approval-rating-young-voters-decline/">disappointment or disillusionment with particular politicians</a> does not necessarily mean they’re disillusioned about their own political power. On the other hand, those who oppose abortion rights may now harbor positive feelings about politics: 19% of young people in the CBS/YouGov survey said they felt “happy” about the recent decision.</p>
<p>In 2018, my survey of young people before that year’s midterm election found that feeling more disappointed or cynical about politics actually <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/ahead-2018-midterms-new-generation-finds-its-political-voice">led to a higher, not lower, likelihood to vote</a>. </p>
<p>According to my estimates, the percentage of young people who voted more than doubled from the 2014 midterm election to the 2018 midterms – <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/28-young-people-voted-2018">rising from 13% to 28%</a>. My research group’s analyses suggest multiple reasons for this jump, including many groups’ starting voter registration much earlier in the year, and the <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/gun-violence-prevention-movement-fueled-youth-engagement-2018-election">youth-led activism after the Parkland school shooting</a>.</p>
<p>In 2020 a similar dynamic played out nationally following the murder of George Floyd, who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/poll-young-people-believe-they-can-lead-change-unprecedented-election-cycle">In a CIRCLE pre-election survey</a>, young people ranked racism as the second-biggest issue that would influence their vote for president, just behind the environment and climate change. About 50% of youths voted during the 2020 election, compared with 39% of young people who <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/half-youth-voted-2020-11-point-increase-2016">did so in 2016</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two young women wear blue shirts and face masks and hold clipboards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473950/original/file-20220713-20-wgdrw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two young political activists try to register college students at Auraria Campus, home to three universities, in Denver, Colo., in September 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/nicole-hensel-left-and-raegan-cotton-of-new-era-colorado-are-trying-picture-id1275521582?s=2048x2048">Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Youths can swing elections in key states</h2>
<p>The youth vote can decisively shape election results at every level. In 2020, for example, young people <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/election-week-2020#young-voters-and-youth-of-color-powered-biden-victory">cast hundreds of thousands of votes in key battleground states</a> like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia, helping President Joe Biden win all three states and Democratic senators win in Arizona and Georgia. </p>
<p>Now that states are deciding on their own abortion laws, young voters’ ballots in gubernatorial and other state and local races may be especially critical in such places as <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Pennsylvania_gubernatorial_and_lieutenant_gubernatorial_election,_2022">Pennsylvania</a> and <a href="https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/07/07/battleground-ballot-box-georgia-reacts-supreme-court-abortion-decision">Georgia</a>, where new abortion restrictions are a possibility depending on election results. </p>
<p>The potential for impact is there – not just for the majority of young people who support abortion, but for the significant minority who oppose it – 32% of people ages 18 to 29 in the CBS/YouGov poll said they approve of the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion.</p>
<p>Nevada, Maryland and Maine rank among the top 10 states where young people could decide governor races, <a href="https://circle.tufts.edu/yesi2022">according to my research</a>. All three states have abortion protections in place, which could motivate young people to vote for candidates who share their position on abortion, whether for or against abortion rights.</p>
<p><em>CIRCLE team members Ruby Belle Booth, Megan Lam and Alberto Medina contributed to this analysis.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abby has worked on research projects funded by private foundations including: the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Youth Engagement Fund, the Democracy Fund, the Spencer Foundation, Ford Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, MacArthur Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Knight Foundation, Tides Foundation, the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation. She is affiliated with Rock the Vote's Democracy Class (Advisory Council), Generation Citizen/Vote16USA (Advisory Board), and the Rural Youth Catalyst Project's Changing the Outcomes for Rural Youth Working Group.</span></em></p>As many as 80% of young people want abortion to be legal, and most disagree with the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs v. Jackson ruling. This could lead to high youth voting rates in the 2022 midterms.Abby Kiesa, Deputy Director at CIRCLE, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1861812022-07-12T12:33:03Z2022-07-12T12:33:03ZUS abortion restrictions are unlikely to influence international trends, which are largely becoming more liberal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473433/original/file-20220711-26-papg1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In most countries, like the Netherlands, it has become easier to get a legal, safe abortion over the last two decades. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/demonstrators-speak-out-in-favor-of-the-abortion-law-in-dutch-law-on-picture-id1241665177?s=2048x2048">Evert Elzinga/ANP/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Supreme Court’s June 24, 2022, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">ruling that overturned</a> Roe v. Wade is already <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/06/abortion-laws-states-roe-overturned-00044127">having profound effects</a> across the United States, from Florida to Wisconsin. And the ruling also bucks a clear worldwide trend. In countries <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/iceland/freedom-world/2020">from Iceland</a> to <a href="https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-018-0908-8">Zambia</a>, abortion restrictions have been lifted over the last two decades, not tightened. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://qz.com/2161476/a-list-of-countries-where-abortion-is-illegal/">only 24 countries</a> out of 195 prohibit abortion, representing just 5% of women of reproductive age globally. Twice that many countries <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/abortion-law-global-comparisons">have made it easier</a> to legally get an abortion in the past 20 years. </p>
<p>The U.S. joined the short list of countries that are increasing abortion restrictions when the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a>. The ruling did not itself make abortion illegal – it said instead that there is no federal right to get an abortion and that the power to regulate belonged to the states. Many states are now <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20201231112641-qfynt/">tightening restrictions</a> on abortion. </p>
<p>In the past, some Supreme Court rulings, such as Brown v. Board of Education, which deemed school segregation illegal, <a href="https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/brown-v-board-of-education-in-international-context-oct-21-2004/">have been influential abroad</a>, cited by other courts in their rulings worldwide. Similarly, some women’s rights advocates <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-the-end-of-roe-could-affect-abortion-access-in-latin-america">are concerned</a> that the Dobbs decision could lend legal support to more restrictive abortion policies in other countries.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=BZThBb8AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F68s7a91tzruhBlRP3s4o5sYb4oFJTNzbNrttpsZ73dVBWP1xP68b-eQk1DsvBTTG5-Y_Kh5I2I5Sb9AzZUxODh3wDaaI3iOwfz8ZQ9iUumQuxevLE">law professor</a> who has studied worldwide trends in abortion law. Rather than triggering a new wave of restrictive abortion laws in other countries, the Dobbs decision seems just as likely to wield little international influence. Two key reasons are the broad global momentum toward greater abortion access and the United States’ <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2022/07/access-safe-and-legal-abortion-urgent-call-united-states-adhere-womens-rights">waning international influence</a> in the area of women’s rights. </p>
<p>In fact, the Dobbs decision may serve to further isolate the U.S. and undermine its credibility as a global leader on women’s rights.</p>
<h2>Abortion trends in other countries</h2>
<p>Thirty countries changed their laws to either permit or make it easier to get an abortion since 2000, according to the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/abortion-law-global-comparisons">Council on Foreign Relations</a>. This trend spanned Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and Oceania. Wealthy countries like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-abortion/new-zealand-passes-historic-law-to-decriminalize-abortion-idUSKBN2153YN">New Zealand</a> and <a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/fertility-matters_the-secret-of-switzerland-s-low-abortion-rate/33585760">Switzerland</a>, along with poorer countries like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-togo-abortion/togo-legalizes-abortion-in-rape-incest-cases-idUSL2837062220061228">Togo</a> and <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/abortion-law-global-comparisons">Micronesia</a>, all increased the ability to get an abortion over the last two decades.</p>
<p>During the same period, only one wealthy Western country, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/12/poland-abortion-rights-history/">Poland</a>, increased restrictions on abortion, joining authoritarian regimes like Nicaragua on the <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/report_downloads/aww_appendix_table_1.pdf">short roster of nations</a> with near-complete abortion bans. </p>
<p>Nepal, <a href="https://theconversation.com/abortion-the-story-of-suffering-and-death-behind-irelands-ban-and-subsequent-legalization-182812">Ireland</a> and Argentina are examples of three countries that recently adopted more liberal abortion laws. </p>
<p>In each of these countries, this change came only after years of protests, court fights and people organizing for political change. These activists’ successes depended on building coalitions within their countries – not on U.S. influence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473432/original/file-20220711-18-b0yevu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three black and white photos show a young smiling woman who appears South Asian. Under her photo is a sign that says 'never again.' A young woman walks past the street art." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473432/original/file-20220711-18-b0yevu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473432/original/file-20220711-18-b0yevu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473432/original/file-20220711-18-b0yevu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473432/original/file-20220711-18-b0yevu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473432/original/file-20220711-18-b0yevu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473432/original/file-20220711-18-b0yevu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473432/original/file-20220711-18-b0yevu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman walks past posters showing Savita Halappanavar, a woman who died in Ireland in 2012 after doctors did not intervene and end her unviable pregnancy, resulting in a fatal infection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/young-woman-walks-past-art-work-featuring-savita-halappanavar-which-picture-id962636306?s=2048x2048">Charles McQuillan/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More liberal laws in Nepal and Ireland</h2>
<p>In Nepal, abortion rights activists secured parliament’s approval for a new abortion law in 2002 after highlighting the country’s high rates of <a href="https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/1742-4755-9-7.pdf">maternal mortality</a> resulting from unsafe abortions. </p>
<p>Updated in 2018, <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/338768/factsheet-nepal-eng.pdf?sequence=9&isAllowed=y">Nepal’s law</a> now permits abortion before 12 weeks of pregnancy, and, in the cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality or risk to a woman’s life or health, any time before 28 weeks. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/abortion-the-story-of-suffering-and-death-behind-irelands-ban-and-subsequent-legalization-182812">Ireland</a>, activists worked for decades to overcome opposition to abortion from powerful forces within the Catholic Church. Using strategic messaging to destigmatize abortion and draw attention to Ireland’s isolated status among other European countries, activists <a href="https://www.hhrjournal.org/2019/12/from-the-grassroots-to-the-oireachtas-abortion-law-reform-in-the-republic-of-ireland/">gradually influenced</a> public opinion. </p>
<p>In 2018, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44256152">a national referendum</a> decisively repealed the long-standing constitutional abortion ban. The new law permits abortion up until 12 weeks of pregnancy. If there is a risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman, however, abortion is allowed up until <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/05/23/why-does-america-allow-abortions-until-fetal-viability">when a fetus could survive</a> outside the womb. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473428/original/file-20220711-16-3vesvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A row of women dressed like characters from the handmaids tale - wearing red robes and white hats - march in a line on a dark night." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473428/original/file-20220711-16-3vesvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473428/original/file-20220711-16-3vesvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473428/original/file-20220711-16-3vesvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473428/original/file-20220711-16-3vesvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473428/original/file-20220711-16-3vesvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473428/original/file-20220711-16-3vesvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473428/original/file-20220711-16-3vesvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pro-abortion rights activists protest the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in Buenos Aires on June 30, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/prochoice-activists-disguised-as-characters-from-canadian-author-picture-id1241635310?s=2048x2048">Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shaky ground</h2>
<p>Argentina also changed its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55475036">abortion policies</a> in 2020, repealing a law that allowed abortion only in cases of rape or when there was a serious risk to the health of the pregnant woman.</p>
<p>Now, people can get abortions up until 14 weeks of pregnancy. In this <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/03/09/argentinas-catholic-numbers-sharp-decline-following-latin-american-trend">predominantly Catholic </a> country, people’s opposition to the law because of religious reasons has slowed implementation of this change in rural areas. Yet Argentina has also spurred a wave of expanded abortion rights in Latin America – called the “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/6/29/latin-america-can-now-lead-the-way-on-abortion-rights">green wave</a>” because of the green scarves worn by abortion activists in the region. </p>
<p>In May 2022, for example, Colombia’s top court <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/05/10/1097570784/colombia-legalized-abortions-for-the-first-24-weeks-of-pregnancy-a-backlash-ensu">upheld</a> the right to get an abortion up until 24 weeks, adopting a standard like that in the <a href="https://www.government.nl/topics/abortion">Netherlands</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada-abortion-law-1.6503899">Canada</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://time.com/6174249/ireland-abortion-rights-roe-v-wade/">Some observers speculate</a> that Roe’s reversal could give new energy to anti-abortion factions seeking to turn back the recent gains made through more liberal abortion laws in other countries. </p>
<h2>Other countries aren’t likely to follow the US’ lead</h2>
<p>But given the extensive coalition building by citizens groups that led to changes in places like Argentina, Nepal and Ireland, rescinding abortion rights will not be easy. </p>
<p>It would be misguided to attribute too much influence to U.S. developments and assume that countries would roll back abortion rights because of the Dobbs decision. </p>
<p>There was a time in the late 20th century when U.S. constitutional opinions were influential globally, but that is <a href="https://www.nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-87-number-3/the-declining-influence-of-the-united-states-constitution/">no longer the case</a>. One reason is that other countries’ democracies matured and their courts built up their own legal record, giving them less impetus to look to U.S. decisions. </p>
<p>And any vestiges of outsize U.S. influence ended during the Donald Trump presidency, when the U.S. systematically dropped out of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-north-america-ap-top-news-international-news-politics-9c5b1005f064474f9a0825ab84a16e91">international groups</a> such as the United Nations Human Rights Council. </p>
<p>The U.S. has also long stood as an outlier on women’s rights in the international context. </p>
<p>For example, more women die in the U.S. during or <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/what-explains-the-united-states-dismal-maternal-mortality-rates">shortly after pregnancy</a> than in any other rich country. The U.S. is also one of the few countries that does not have <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/quick-facts-paid-family-medical-leave/#:%7E:text=Workers%20and%20their%20families%20lose,difficulty%20in%20making%20ends%20meet.">paid family and medical leave</a>.</p>
<p>The overturning of Roe and federally protected abortion rights after nearly 50 years is certainly a cautionary sign for abortion rights supporters worldwide. But given the strength of the global women’s movement and the robust defense of abortion rights in most countries, Dobbs’ relevance may prove isolated to the U.S. It’s not likely a signal that the worldwide trend of expanding abortion rights is reversing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186181/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martha Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Only 24 countries today totally ban abortion. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in the US is unlikely to lead other countries to join that list.Martha Davis, Professor of law, Northeastern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.