Instead of decriminalizing abortions, the United States Supreme Court’s historic U-turn on abortion a year ago created hellish headaches for women, confusion in the courts and a dilemma for the Republican Party.
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court, profoundly reshuffled by Donald Trump, in its Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed American women the right to an abortion since 1973, gave each state the freedom to legislate on the matter.
That same day, First States banned abortions on their soil, forcing clinics to hastily close or move to more welcoming lands.
A broken country
Since then, the country has been divided between twenty states that have imposed bans or stronger restrictions, mainly located in the south and center, and along the coasts that have adopted new guarantees.
The overall impact, from an arithmetic perspective, remains limited: the professional body Family Planning recorded an average of 79,031 abortions per month nationwide from July 2022 to March 2023, compared to 81 ‘730 in April/May 2022. 3.3% decrease.
“Many continue to get the abortions they want, but they face high barriers,” Ushma Upadhyay, a professor of public health and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco and co-author of the study, told AFP.
“Russian Chili”
Clinic closures in a dozen states have prompted tens of thousands of women to travel.
Beyond the financial cost, it’s not always easy to take a day off or explain your absence to loved ones. Being organized delays intervention, later in pregnancy, and can have a psychological impact. Not to mention the health risk.
In one complaint, a Texas resident, Anna Zargarian, said her water broke too soon for her fetus to survive, but she had to travel to Colorado to deliver her. The flight was “terrifying”: “It was like playing Russian Chili: I could bleed, get infected or go into labor at any moment.”
During the first trimester, Americans can also use the abortion pill. But it’s illegal in many states and those who receive it through the Internet or support networks “are vulnerable to prosecution,” notes Ushma Upadhyay.
As for those who are forced to carry their pregnancies, it’s mainly “the poorest of the poor” and mostly black or Hispanic women, given the country’s deep racial disparities, the expert adds.
For her, the future is uncertain. For a year, many donors have mobilized to help the women, “but in a year or two these individual efforts will run out,” she predicts.
Legal uncertainty
Likewise, the legal landscape remains unstable. Each of the restrictive laws has been challenged in court, and the outcome of most appeals is still unknown, including in populous southern states like Georgia or South Carolina. But the big unknown is the abortion pill.
In April, a federal judge revoked the marketing authorization for mifepristone (RU 486), which was granted by the United States Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000 and has been used by more than five million women.
His decision was stayed by the Supreme Court, but an appeals court may soon review it.
Under pressure
This battle continues in the political arena and will be one of the main issues in the race for the White House in 2024: according to a USA Today poll, 20% of Americans put abortion at the top of their concerns for this election. / University of Suffolk.
President Joe Biden, long a Catholic wary of abortion, is now casting himself as a champion of abortion rights, a second term in his campaign that has garnered support from several major family planning organizations.
The strategy, which has been largely approved by elected Democrats, has already avoided a declared defeat in the midterm elections.
The failure of anti-abortion referendums in the most conservative states of Kansas and Kentucky dampened Republican enthusiasm, forcing a delicate balancing act.
To satisfy an essential component of their electorate, the religious right, they are pushing for more restrictive legislation at the local level, banning abortion even in cases of rape or sex.
But despite pressure from anti-abortion organizations, anxious not to alienate moderate voters, they are on the other hand heavily marginalized at the federal level.
Among them, the group SBA Pro-Life has indicated that it will only support 2024 presidential candidates who promise to promote legislation restricting abortion across the United States.
Donald Trump kicks for a moment of connection by bringing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court and boasting that he “buried Roe v. Wade.”
This article was published automatically. Sources: ats / afp
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