Roe v. Wade overturn

Last week it was announced that the US Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade - the landmark case from 1973 that protected the rights of pregnant people in the US to have abortions. The ruling set out rules around what states could regulate depending on the trimester stage of the pregnancy.

The ruling actually turns the law back onto states to decide whether to allow people access to safe abortions. And we know that there are many states where this won't be permitted - and some states have “trigger laws” which immediately make it illegal to access abortions now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned.

Conservative states have, for years, attempted to restrict access. This seems to be exclusively driven by evangelical Christianity, which has become convinced that the Bible prohibits abortion. Of course, you can make the Bible support any position you want, but as I note from some of my ex-Christian friends, there's plenty of support in there for abortion, not against it.

Obviously, it's distressing that the US has continued down the path of continued erosion of the separation of church and state. And, it's galling that people feel they have the right to impose their religious beliefs on others who don't share those beliefs. If, for whatever reason, you don't like abortions - don't have them. But don't force your beliefs on others.

From the perspective of Aotearoa/New Zealand, access to abortion is well protected, with the introduction of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, which removed it from the Crimes Act 1961. Our current government is obviously pro-choice, on the side of abortion being about reproductive health and bodily autonomy, and generally leaving religion out of the equation. Nevertheless, MPs are typically more conservative (with a lowercase C) than the rest of the population, so voting has proceeded on the basis that it's a conscience matter.

The current leader of the opposition - Christopher Luxon - is a well-known evangelical Christian, who is on record as stating that he's pro-life, and thinks that abortion is murder. He's recently stated that changes to the abortion legislation would be “off the table” and that it's been decided - but this was in relation to posts and statements made by members of his party. In particular, Simon O'Connor posted “Today is a good day” on the overturning of Roe v. Wade and had previously made a speech in parliament mentioning God's vengence (in Latin) in relation to abortion!

We should obviously be wary of the potential for regressive changes to our legislation in our future.

Bronwyn, who's a regular contributor to our newsletter, recently stated the opinion that users of period-tracking apps should be very wary of the data they're inadvertently leaking. And, this advice has been reflected in the US, with a strong warning that states could use such data as evidence of pregnancy and accessing an illegal abortion.

There is some interesting perspective around misinformation about abortion. A recent Scientific American article discussed how the overturn will affect people who when search for information about abortion online. The online world is rife with misinformation and disinformation - at least in the US. And social media sites, such as Facebook, are profiting off ads that present inaccurate information about abortion and pregnancy.

Interestingly, I performed some Google searches using “abortion” as the keyword (using Chrome's Incognito mode) and it offered up results that were strongly information-based. Of course, I'm located here in New Zealand, so it's obviously taking that into account with the results offered, so that's a relief that the problem hasn't made its way here (yet).

I'm aware that there's a strong anti-abortion contingent here though - driving south from Auckland through Waikato sees various anti-abortion billboards erected in paddocks throughout the countryside. And we have the shameful “crisis pregnancy centres” here which offer vulnerable women biased and religiously-motivated advice to avoid abortions. Here's a screenshot from Gianna's Choice - Pregnancy Options and Support.

Note - that link uses a little project that Mark Honeychurch built - which obscures the URL of dodgy sites so they don't inadvertently get blocked by social media companies. If you'd like to try it out yourself, just go to weak.link.

Anyway, according to studies, abortion rights are good health and good science and, contrary to the claims of pro-life advocates, most people accessing abortions report positive outcomes - with the most common reaction being relief.