We Might Lose Roe
A Landmark 1973 Decision Is Poised To Be Overturned According To A Draft Opinion By Justice Alito
Full disclosure: from October 5, 1992 to February 6, 1993 - for a period of about 18 weeks - I was a father, the operative word here being “was” because my girlfriend at the time decided to exercise her choice to terminate the pregnancy.
This was and still is, without a doubt, the worst day of my life knowing and experiencing how one half of my genetic inheritance was slated to be destroyed and, even though she and I weren’t prepared to be parents (we were both in college, had zero prospects for gainful employment) it may have been the correct decision - but it wasn’t right.
Today the United States Supreme Court had a draft decision written by Justice Samuel Alito calling for Roe to be overturned, citing the following:
Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.
I am of the opinion that any woman that sees abortion as the first, last and only option to deal with an unplanned pregnancy and isn’t otherwise in danger of losing her life carrying the baby to term then that’s a woman I don’t want to be with.
I may not have a choice in what a woman does with her body but I can vote with my feet.
That being said, Alito is wrong: this still is very much a woman’s issue and not something to be decided by “the people’s representatives” who are mostly men, men who don’t have any stake in or assuming any of the risks of pregnancy.
Roe wasn’t the beginning of women having abortions: it was the end of women dying from them as most of them were described as “back alley” and unsafe and if Roe is overturned, over half the states in America will make it illegal, 13 of which have trigger laws in the event and at the precise moment Roe is overturned.
I, for one, would rather abortions be safe and legal than to go back to a time prior to Roe - in spite and exactly because of - my views on the subject.
I don’t want Roe overturned. Over 70% of Americans don’t want it overturned. The US Supreme Court is taking a minority position and if the court continues to behave in this manner they will have lost the legitimacy they ever had.
And if I had to do February 6. 1993 again today I’d still wouldn’t want Roe overturned.