Due to a leak, many have heard about the Supreme Court’s reconsideration of the 1973 Roe v. Wade court ruling. In short, this case ended with giving women the legal right to decide whether or not they would have an abortion at the national level. Now, these rights are being threatened, and face being taken away entirely. 

Politico leaked a draft majority to overturn Roe v. Wade written by Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito May 2. In this writing, Alito said, “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” and “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

Since this draft has been shown to the world, women across America have started to wonder what this will mean for their reproductive rights. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it is believed that over half the US states will make abortion illegal. There have even been talks of Louisiana charging it as murder. It is my belief that overturning Roe v. Wade is wrong, and will cause more problems than the Supreme Court thinks it will solve.

There have been protests across the country of people who also disagree with the court’s leaked opinion. One point many people bring is that overturning the 1973 decision will severely diminish women’s bodily autonomy. Women deserve to have the choice to an abortion just as any other person deserves the choice to make changes to their own body. Overturning Roe v. Wade would mean that a woman who is impregnated would no longer be able to terminate that pregnancy if she can’t care for the baby, can’t afford prenatal care, or just doesn’t want the baby. Not to mention women who become pregnant due to sexual assault. Why should someone who be forced with the burden of carrying, birthing, and caring for that baby for the rest of her life?

Another argument that people who are against abortion often bring up is the option of the foster care system. What they fail to mention is how flawed America’s foster care system has become. As of 2020, there are over 400,000 children in the foster care system. In America, it seems like almost anybody can become a foster parent. Due to this, abuse runs rampant in the system. According to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 30% of children in foster care have underlying illnesses, be it physical or mental, and not every foster parent is equipped for that, leading to mistreatment. If people were properly educated on this, or the foster care system actually started to see some reform, maybe I could get behind this argument, but I don’t think it’s fair to force any baby into a system as broken as this one just because a woman has been put in a situation where she is forced to give birth to a baby.

Even before the threat of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, states have been placing limits on how early a woman can get an abortion, notably, Texas’ fetal heartbeat bill. This bill states that no abortion should be performed on a fetus whose heart rate can be detected. Often, the first sign of heart rate is six weeks. But attempting to detect the heartbeat of a fetus so early gives results that are typically inaccurate. Additionally, many women do not even know they are pregnant at six weeks. Fetuses so small have no concept of feeling pain, and those feelings rarely happen until it’s too late to have abortions, even in states that have no bans or restrictions. Placing restrictions on when a woman can get an abortion, especially where it’s so early a woman may not be able to tell she is pregnant, does not work the way male lawmakers want it to.

The news of this decision has set people off across the country, protesting the men making these laws, the ideas of these laws, and what these laws will do to women across America. Women deserve the right to choose what they want for their body, family, and what is best for them. Sexual assault victims don’t need to go through pregnancy and caring for babies of their attacker. The overturning of Roe v. Wade, is in my opinion, one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court has made in recent times. I think more should be done to support women who must have abortions, and that they deserve the right to choose.