As a female growing up in the United States, I never contemplated the idea that women would still be discriminated against because of their sex in the twenty-first century. Yes, it has been proven that women receive less money for the same jobs men do and we are still trying to shake the stereotypical image of a frail, weak, woman who needs a man to help her through life, nevertheless we were still endowed with basic human rights, no? 

The overturning of Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case blows this idea out of the water. 

The constitution was set into place with the inclusion of the Bill of Rights providing the citizens of our country with “certain unalienable rights” that the government was to never take away. 

When laws are set into place, they are typically quite vague. Congress realizes that they too are only human, and they can not predict every single circumstance that the one law might be applied to, so by making it rather nonspecific, they allow  for the interpretation of said law by judges in a courtroom.

Over time, the United States has gone through many different theories of statutory interpretation. The two most popular or used theories include purposivism and textualism. 

Purposivism interpretation is when the judge looks at what congress was trying to fix or do with the creation of the law, and then they look at how the law is achieving this goal. It was with this theory that the right to privacy was crafted through Griswold v. Connecticut. 

Textualists go entirely off the language in the law. They take most things literally and do not think using prior knowledge or information from other sources is appropriate when interpreting texts. Many of these people are forming an argument that there is not a right to privacy in the bill of rights, and therefore, abortion is not protected. 

Of course with the Supreme Court Opinion draft leaked, it  appeared that  the federal courts are trying to make the issue of abortion a state issue, instead of a federal one. This would mean that abortions and contraceptive devices would no longer be federally protected, but left up to the states to decided whether they wish to protect or ban it all together. How does this make sense?

To take away all forms of contraception and then take away the only way to get rid of a pregnancy just sets women up for failure.

 On the other side, those who identify as pro-life claim that only when a women’s life is in danger should she be granted the option to get an abortion, or if the pregnancy stems from an assault or forced sexual experience. Basically implying that only when a woman is violated does she receive the right to make the choice to terminate the pregnancy. Are we going to force the father of these children to parent them? Or are the women the only ones that need to be held accountable for their actions? 

If this is the argument you pose, then perhaps you are unaware of the struggles a single mother faces in this country. Perhaps you are also unaware of the mass amount of children left in the foster care system. To take away the option to abort a fetus before they are born is signing this country up for thousands and thousands of more children suffering toxic and abusive homes, winding up in Foster Cares, and living difficult lives that they did not sign-up for. 

I want to make it clear that I do not believe abortions will be eliminated completely. There are states, including California, that have already said they will not be taking away a woman’s right to choose for herself. However, in states that do make it illegal, I fear we will see a rise in the practice of unsafe at home abortions. 

The country experienced the same thing in 1920, when the 18th amendment made the creation and selling of alcohol illegal. Instead of a decrease in consumption of the product, the creation of Speakeasies began, which were secret bars and clubs that you needed a password for in order to be allowed in. Here, people illegally drank alcohol, going against the amendment.

Long story short, when people want something, they will do it regardless of the laws in place. The question is whether they are doing it safely, or unsafely.