By Alejandra Garcia on June 26, 2022 from Havana
1994, women have led the fight for safe and legal abortions in the US and they won’t stop now. photo: Bill Hackwell
Scandal, pain, and anger. Women’s rights advocates in the United States cannot believe what has just happened. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the historic decision that legalized abortion in the United States. According to the ruling, there is no longer a constitutional right to abortion, guaranteed by the case known as Roe v. Wade. The news had been leaked over a month ago but now the cold cruel reality has hit home.
This litigation is so called because, in 1971, a young Texas mother, under the pseudonym “Jane Roe,” filed a lawsuit against the local district attorney, Henry Wade, when she couldn’t abort her third pregnancy due to the state’s strict laws.
The verdict was in Roe’s favor and was historic because it legislated that abortion could not be prohibited during the first trimester of pregnancy as it violated a woman’s right to privacy. Prior to the case, in 30 out of 50 states, abortion was completely illegal.
By overruling Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the Supreme Court allows states to pursue bans and other restrictions on this procedure. “This cruel decision is outrageous and disheartening,” U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
“The court laid out state laws criminalizing abortion that go back to the 1800s: It has literally set America back 150 years,” President Joe Biden added in a statement from the White House.
While the Democratic Party leadership was quick to condemn the ruling the question has to be why during those 49 years didn’t they push a bill in Congress that would have made into law a woman’s right to choose?
Its not like they didn’t have the opportunity to get it done, especially during the times they controlled the house. Now the Democrats are turning this disaster for women and families it into an opportunity for themselves to get votes in the coming up midterm election. Vote the republicans out is good but then what?
Woman are now at the mercy of the states they live in.
From now on, an abortion applicant’s criminal liability will depend on the policies her state implements. Thirteen states had trigger bans that immediately became law when Roe vs. Wade was struck down by a 6-3 vote by right wing appointed judges who have no accountability because their seat is for life with no clause for recall.
The decision was released as the country faces a surge in gun violence that it doesn’t know how to contain due to resistance from Republicans and Democrats who are impotent to stand up and make real changes by passing stiff gun control laws.
As a result, reactions in social networks have been shocking. “Welcome to the United States. Where guns have more rights than women,” one user wrote on Twitter. “Constitution says you can’t kill babies unless it’s with a gun,” another citizen commented and added, “you ban abortion before you ban guns because you care more about an unborn child than children being killed at schools? Make that make sense.”
Touching stories also circulated, such as that of Shana Silverstein. “Me and my daughter would not be here today if I did not have a lifesaving surgery for an ectopic pregnancy. In post-Roe era, this surgery is considered an abortion,” she wrote on her Twitter account.
Cuba has safe and free abortions on demand thanks to the revolution
While all this is happening in the United States, Cuba keeps trying to improve their laws to be more humanly inclusive. This week, it was news on the island that the new Families Code, which protects and expands women’s rights -including legal, safe, and free-of-charge abortion- will be submitted to a referendum in September. This is after the new Family Code has been discussed and refined at every level of Cuban society. This is what democracy looks like.
This document maintains access to the procedure, a right that Cuban women have had for decades. Cuba was, in fact, the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to decriminalize abortion.
After the 1959 Revolution, in 1961, the country took the practice out of hiding. In 1965, the new-born government created the legal basis so that it could be performed within the framework of the National Health System.
“Abortion was not a taboo subject,” feminist journalist and activist Marta Maria Ramirez told the press. “Surely because of an issue of syncretism with the Yoruba religion and Catholicism, which dilutes it, the strength of the Catholic Church was already slight.”
Until the early 1960s, high society people accessed abortions safely and confidentially; however, many poor people died. Maternal death figures for unsafe abortions were more than 60 per 100,000 births. After the modification of the law, deaths from abortions dropped to almost zero.
Since then, those seeking to end a pregnancy on the island have several options. They can go to the family doctor and make a family planning consultation in a health institution or gynecological hospitals.
Today, this is just a dream for U.S. women that are being taken back to the dark ages. Activists are exploring legal alternatives to circumvent abortion bans in the face of the Roe v. Wade deadlock. Many are also thinking of setting up support systems to transport women from a state where abortions are illegal to one where it is legal. Women like Harriet Tubman were leaders of the underground railroad to get slaves to freedom in the Northern states so there is no reason to think they could not set up another railroad for women’s rights in this reactionary period.
“We will gather all the legal arguments we can think of to prevent half the country from becoming a desert of abortion,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, a few days ago.
“We are preparing for the world without Roe v. Wade and we won’t let lawmakers think we will stand idly by in the face of this multi-pronged attack,” she concluded. Already in cities across the US large protests are taking place. With all the other problems that poor and working women are facing in this declining period here is one more that very likely will ignite another whole new wave of grass roots organizations and individuals who are fed up with politicians and their private interests. This fight for a woman’s right to choose in the US is not going to go away.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English