Roe v. Wade and the Assault on Women’s Freedom

Governmental overreach at its most grotesque

Geoff Livingston

The fact that four men and one woman seem in the process of telling over 166 million women in America that they can’t have legal abortions is as tragic as it is absurd. Anyone who thinks this decision will save and protect lives is perhaps blind to how many it will harm.

Overturning Roe v. Wade, if in fact that’s the final decision handed down by the Supreme Court over the next couple of months, will have extraordinary repercussions. It will reach into intimate parts of our lives beyond what many people realize. The passage of Roe v. Wade profoundly influenced, for better or for worse, how people looked at sex; overturning it will, as well. Women of child-bearing years have never known an America in which legal abortion was not an option, but they’ll know it now.

Abortion is a very serious topic, beyond just whether or not it’s legally permissible. It’s also about what’s morally responsible, and the failure of many on the Left to acknowledge that fact has had a lot to do, I feel, with losing so much support for Roe v. Wade over the last few decades.

Casual abortion is as much a moral anathema to me as it is to any right wing anti-choice activist. Abortion is a decision that should only be made in the deepest recesses of a woman’s communion with her conscience, and with her God. I believe it should be a moral decision, and I also can see that there are times when the decision to terminate a pregnancy is exactly that. Most importantly, I think the United States government should have zero - zilch - input into her decision.

There are issues of private morality, and issues of public morality. Our government’s lack of moral consideration regarding issues such as foreign policy, the environment, worker’s rights, and economics is very disturbing to me. But equally disturbing is when it has the presumption, as the majority on our Supreme Court apparently now does, to think it has the right to weigh in on any American’s personal moral decisions. The idea that the government can tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own uterus is preposterous government overreach.

The current drama should never have occurred, and if Democrats had done what their voters expected them to do then it never would have. Yes, if Hillary had won in 2016 we would not have such a conservative right wing Court. But Democrats have had ample opportunity over the years to codify reproductive rights into law and they have chosen not to. It should not be lost on any of us that they can do so even now.

In the meantime, Americans should not be shallow in our thinking about this. Women in America will continue to get abortions. There will be the most horrific scenarios, including black market abortion pills from God knows where, a shadow realm on the Internet that adds to the plethora of evils already there, and personal traumas beyond what any of us can imagine. And all of it unnecessary.

As a passionately pro-choice woman who has run for political office myself, I’ve seen how this subject can be handled in a way that is respectful towards seemingly irreconcilable views. I’ve had many experiences speaking to “pro-life” voters (I prefer “anti-choice,” as I don’t think they’re any more pro-life than the rest of us) who simply wanted to hear that I acknowledge the moral dimensions involved in this issue. And I do. I don’t even have a problem with non-prejudicial counseling such as that demanded in Germany, carrying no decision-making authority but guaranteeing that a woman’s choice to have an abortion is not made impulsively. There is a way to build a political bridge on this issue, but overturning Roe v. Wade is not the way.

In the meantime, the Democratic Party has a lot to answer for and a lot of work ahead of them. Democrats’ choice in how to deal with this moment will go far towards determining voter response in both 2022 and 2024. If all they do is place the responsibility on voters, then voters will reject the burden and for good reason. For years Democrats have had the power to prevent this, and the time to correct their error is right now. End the filibuster. Codify reproductive rights. Have a spine.

In the meantime, I agree with President Clinton when he said he abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” American women will put up with nothing less. And I am one of them.