Is Roe v. Wade about to be overturned?

Yes, I was woefully late posting this. But that makes it more historical, capturing some of the sentiments before the event. 

A draft decision overturning the Roe decision has been leaked---perhaps the first leak of a decision in the history of the Supreme Court. But the leak isn't my focus in the least. There's so much to consider that has much more impact on people's lives. 

If Roe is overturned, it will become much harder to get an abortion in over half the states in the US. And it will stay the same in a lot of states, like mine. 

However it's hard to tell how much impact this will actually have because getting an abortion is much easier than it was back 50 years ago. Now you can take a pill. That pill can be shipped to you or to a friend. You and a group of friends can stock up and resupply as convenient. There's also going to other states, but that's not as easy as taking a pill, so the pills will probably be used more than anything.

Will states try to prevent this? Maybe, probably, but how successful can they be? We have a huge illegal drug issue in the US, and states and federal government haven't put an end to that. This would involve legally available pills and people who want the government to stop dictating to women. So I think flaunting the laws will be widespread. A few people may be imprisoned, and that will seem like an injustice of the most arbitrary kind. And life will go on without a lot of difference except perhaps some people will be more careful about contraceptive use. 

Image: i stock photo

Extras. Dems have been raked over the coals for not passing a national law protecting abortion rights. But they never had the votes in the Senate since the bill certainly would have been filibustered. They had only 54 votes, with 7 Dem senators being pro-life at that time in 2009. 

Annotated copy of the leaked draft opinion. 

The talking points for the Republican senators: stress how compassionate GOPers are and how horrible extremists Dems are. 

Fascinating article about the abortion business in New York City in the 1800s. Abortion was illegal, sort of, so it was advertised as restoring menstrual regularity. 

Fall-out in Ohio. A 10-year-old girl was raped and impregnated. She had to go to Indiana to get the abortion. Big impact on the discussions in states. 

A gallery of day-by-day fetal development. 

Update 4/11/24. Long article about women taking abortion pills in states with abortion bans. They can often get the pills free, but they aren't getting a doctor's care, and that's a huge loss. Many are unsure what is normal and what are the danger signs that they should seek medical care. If they seek medical care, will they be prosecuted or targeted in some ways? There are some volunteer services of doctors on call who will answer questions, but it's not a substitute for physician care in person and in crisis. 

The dark side of the pro-life argument

There was a time before Roe v. Wade when we lived in a land that enforced the law that if you got pregnant, you gave birth to the child. Most of us, including me, don't know what that time was like. Here is a reminder (from the comments on a Salon article):

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My mother graduated from nursing school in the late 50s. While she was training in the emergency room, she befriended a young OB/Gyn and made an agreement that extended to a couple of other nurses. Whenever a young woman came in having had a botched abortion, the nurse would get in contact with that particular doctor no matter where he was or what he was doing, and he would take care of them.

Why was this necessary? Well, none of the other doctors would treat these girls. NONE of them. My mother tells horror stories of little girls as young as 13 or 14 being abandoned in hospital hallways until after they were dead. It was an unspoken rule that the doctor was not to show up until they were cold.

The hardest for her is the case of a little girl who tried to give herself an abortion with a knitting needle. She wasn't even a teenager yet. When her mother came into her bedroom, the child was almost unconscious and the bed was soaked with blood. The mother called her preacher and they prayed over this dying child until morning.

When they finally got the kid in the emergency room, she was given some blood, but no other treatment. There was nothing that could have been done to save her. It was far too late, there was already a massive infection in place and she was too damaged to survive any surgery.

The girl was in and out of consciousness for hours, crying and terrified and knowing that she would die. Her family left her there. My mother was the one that sat with her and held her hand while she died. That kid was 11. My mother was 20 (still a kid herself). This didn't change for another ten years or so. That's a lot of dead women.

My mother (in her 70s now) and her entire graduating class are some of the most adamantly pro-choice women I've ever met.

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These are the kinds of stories that the justices of the Supreme Court weighed when they made their 7-2 decision supporting the right to abortion. Even strong Catholics like Caitlin Flanagan are swayed by the truth of what it was like before abortion was legal and safe.

If you're against safe-and-legal abortion, you need to read these links. Read about the blood and the dying girls, about the doctors and nurses and families who treated them with disgust. You need to be fully informed because you are dealing with life and death, just as a woman considering an abortion (also a life-and-death decision) should be fully and truthfully informed. You also need to know that some medical personnel still treat women this way.

Don't doubt the truth of these stories. With the efficacy of our modern medicine, we forget an important medical fact--women are prone to large blood loss in childbirth or miscarriage.

"A river of blood runs through The Choices We Made, and it runs throughout the history of womankind. ...[A]ll the women and men who made possible a context in which an abortion could be performed legally, safely, and even humanely—together they say: Enough."
- Caitlin Flanagan

Update 6/14/19. As many states put severe restrictions on abortion and hope the Supreme Court will void Roe. v. Wade, the Washington Post published some old articles about abortion prior to the ruling.