Reproductive Rights

With all the terms flying around these days, what does “the fight for reproductive rights” really mean? Let’s break it down. In January of 1973, the infamous Roe v. Wade passed in a 7-2 vote, deeming a woman’s right to choose a federal constitutional right. According to the Pew Research Center, 744 thousand abortions were performed in the U.S. that year, and the number peaked in 1990 at 1.6 million abortions. Numbers have decreased since, and the most recent data shows 930 thousand abortions were performed in 2020. Many conservatives have continued to fight for the banning of abortion, declaring it murderous and inhumane. These protesters found some success when Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, and the choice of the legality of abortions returned to the states. 

To determine each state’s policies, voters went to the polls to cast their vote: should abortion be legal, and to what extent? Some states, including Alaska and Kansas, surprised many by voting to keep abortion legal, though they did not instate laws protecting it. However, states such as Texas, Tennessee, and Louisiana, chose instead to both ban and criminalize abortion. This past election, voters returned to the ballot box to decide how abortion rights should move forward in their state. The results? Proposals for abortion rights passed in seven states, while three failed. States Florida, South Dakota, and Nebraska just barely failed to pass laws protecting the right to abortion (until fetal viability in Florida and Nebraska, and during the first trimester in South Dakota). Instead, strict bans will remain in place in all three states. Meanwhile, abortion became legal in Missouri and Arizona. Additionally, states Colorado, Maryland, Montana, New York, and Nebraska voted for new laws protecting abortion rights, though Nebraska protections won’t be instituted until the proposal passes again in the next general election. So, what happens now? While these seven wins are big for the pro-choice movement, abortion bans remain in 18 states. What’s more, Donald Trump’s presidential election win poses a threat to abortion rights everywhere. Although Trump tweeted that he will not support a federal abortion ban, he also doesn’t seem to be clear on the issue. In fact, in the same post, he insisted that democrats had a “radical position of late term abortion” that included abortion in the seventh, eighth, and ninth month, as well as “execution of the baby after birth.” Donald Trump’s outlandish claims have left many American women afraid of how they might maintain their rights to their body when it is left in the hands of the president-elect.