On the 24th of June, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, reversing the decision that affirmed the constitutional right to an abortion, having a detrimental impact on the lives of women, and people who menstruate.
The decision shocked the world. How is it that in 2022, the United States has managed to become so backward in terms of bodily autonomy?
Yet, it is not just the lack of control that a woman has over her body that is a concern to many, it is also the implication on healthcare for American women.
I recently read a post on Instagram that said “criminalising abortion does not stop abortion, it simply stops safe abortion”. That statement really hit me. As a history student, I have studied the impact of criminalising abortion. And, as the statement suggests, it did not prevent an abortion from taking place. Instead, individuals took matters into their own hands and arranged backstreet abortions. As a consequence of the unsanitary practicing spaces and medical instruments, as well as the lack of medical training, many women who used backstreet abortions would often experience sepsis, haemorrhaging, and sometimes death. If a person is seeking to have an abortion, criminalising it does not prevent them from doing so. It simply makes them search for people who are willing to carry them out illegally, endangering their safety. By the US Supreme Court reversing Roe v Wade, they are leading millions of people to their deaths.
According to the World Health Organisation, unsafe abortions account for 4.7-13.2% of maternal deaths every year, making it one of the main causes of maternal mortality. Since unsafe abortions will become commonplace in the US, this number will only rise.
Criminalising abortion simply gets rid of the regulations that were keeping people safe. It will become dangerous for a person to access an abortion service. Not only will the clinics not be upheld to the standards of training and infection control needed to reduce infection and complications, but there will also be reduced support for the person seeking abortion practices – both through the physical and mental strain of an abortion.
In addition to this, overturning Roe v Wade could have a massive impact on access to contraception. Despite “Plan B”, or “the morning after pill”, not being made illegal in any of the states as of yet, there is a grey area. States that outlaw abortion from the moment of fertilisation could theoretically prosecute those taking “Plan B”, but also those using an IUD as a contraceptive method.
Therefore, the reversal of Roe v Wade is not simply just the outright ban of abortion. It threatens to limit the contraceptive choices that people have access to, and the aftermath of the decision will arguably change attitudes to contraception for many years to come.
The criminalisation of abortion has implications for healthcare that extend further than abortion practices and contraceptive choices themselves. A few weeks after the bill had passed, a post from an ER nurse was reposted all over Instagram. In this post, the nurse stated there was a pregnant woman who was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. Due to the reversal of Roe v Wade, the doctors had to call in a lawyer before they could treat the women to make sure the medical treatment was lawful. This meeting took 6 hours. Meanwhile, the woman’s ectopic burst and she was losing a lot of blood. Luckily, this woman was saved. But the same might not be said for the next person.
Furthermore, states creating and implementing their own laws for abortion and what constitutes as an abortion leaves grey areas. As a result, the fear of prosecution for miscarriages has risen. In an interview to NPR, Dana Sussman, who is the acting executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), said that they were experiencing an increase in mothers who experience a stillbirth or miscarriage being blamed for that loss. This criminalisation has led to widespread fear of certain medications, or procedures, that have a risk of miscarriage associated with them.
In addition to this, there are reports of doctors refusing to give women pain-reducing medication for fear that it will be used to induce abortions. Women from across the states have spoken out about not being able to get methotrexate, which is used to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and psoriatic arthritis. Since states such as Texas have legally listed the drug as abortion-inducing, doctors have been forced to refuse women the drug out of fear of prosecution. This means thousands of women are being denied the pain medication that is needed in order for them to carry out their everyday lives.
Regardless of your views on abortion, it is clear that the Supreme Court’s decision is affecting all areas of healthcare, from an increase in unsafe abortion practices to the refusal of medications.
How many more of these situations, like the post shared by the ER nurse, will occur? How many lives will be endangered? And what will the implications be for women’s healthcare?
Sadly, only time will tell.
Featured image credits – Gayatri Malhotra via Unsplash
Article image credits – Christina Victoria Craft via Unsplash
