– It felt like a kick in the stomach.
This is how Lisa (42) describes the overturning of Roe v. Wadewhich means that there is no longer a federal right to self-determined abortion in the United States.
The junior high school teacher lives and works in the small town of Saint Charles in Missouri. Even before the ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade came down, the Midwestern state had passed a so-called “trigger law.” It made abortion services illegal with immediate effect.
READ MORE: What is Roe v. Wade?
– Demonstrators protested in Missouri on June 24 when Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP via NTB
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As a result, the state’s abortion clinics stopped offering their usual services. Now pregnant women in Lisa’s home district have to go to the neighboring state of Illinois, an hour’s drive away, if they want to have an abortion.
– It is outrageous. I think about my students and the situations they may find themselves in. It is expensive for them to travel out of state, especially with the gas prices we have now. Besides, the operation is not free either. Many will not be able to afford to go to Illinois for an abortion, says Lisa.
Will criminalize emigration
The tortuous road from the edge of Missouri to Illinois may soon become even more tortuous. And illegal.
Missouri Congresswoman Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican, recently introduced a bill that would make it possible to prosecute people who help Missourians obtain abortions outside the state’s borders.
This can be anything from healthcare personnel to private individuals who drive the pregnant woman to the abortion clinic.
– My children are still young, but I honestly don’t know how I will react in a few years, if they become involved in an unwanted pregnancy, where the girl wants to have an abortion, says Lisa, and continues:
– Will I respect the law, if it denies someone I am happy to decide on their own reproductive health?
Lisa says she is committed to raising her children to be law-abiding citizens, but that the repeal of Roe v. Wade, as well as the new local bill that is on the table, challenges the law-abiding ideal
– It is something I will think about a lot in the future. I simply don’t have a good answer. Right now I just feel a deep hopelessness. Overturning Roe v. Wade feels low. It is as if the ruling says that women’s freedom is less important than men’s freedom.
Facts: The abortion case in the USA
The United States Supreme Court has issued many important rulings on abortion over the years. Here are some of them:
- 1973: The Court legalizes abortion throughout the United States in the landmark Roe vs. Wade.
- 1976: The Supreme Court strikes down a Missouri law that required a married woman to obtain her husband’s permission to have an abortion.
- 1986: The court strikes down parts of a Pennsylvania law that sought to influence women to carry out pregnancies, including by requiring them to be informed of the risks of abortion.
- 1989: Court declines to set Roe vs. Wade aside, but allows for state regulations.
- 1992: The Court issued a ruling upholding Roe vs. Wade and says that states cannot ban abortion before weeks 23-24 of pregnancy.
- 2000: Court strikes down a Nebraska law that banned second-trimester abortions without exceptions that took into account the pregnant woman’s health.
- 2007: Roe vs. Wade is weakened when the court upholds an abortion law in Congress that contained much of the same as the Nebraska law that was struck down in 2000.
- 2016: In the strongest defense of abortion rights in 25 years, the Supreme Court strikes down a Texas law that forced clinics to maintain hospital standards and doctors to have hospital referral privileges.
- 2020: The Supreme Court strikes down a Louisiana law similar to the Texas one struck down in 2016.
- 2022: Supreme Court sets Roe vs. Wade aside, ending nearly 50 years of federal abortion law in the United States.
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Surprised by the reaction
Missouri is a Republican state. In the last presidential election, Donald Trump received almost 57 percent of the vote. Lisa says that she has therefore allowed herself to be surprised by the reaction she has observed among friends and acquaintances on social media.
– Many people I consider to be conservative have written that they are against the denial of abortion. It was surprising, she says.
Democrats and Republicans are increasingly settling in different places. Lisa believes the repeal of Roe v. Wade could reinforce the trend.
– I think more and more people will leave the state. I myself would have moved to Canada if I could, but I have my parents here, I have built a career in Missouri and earned pension points, she says, and continues:
– But it is difficult to live in a place that breaks so strongly with my basic concept of human freedom.
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