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The Supreme Court of America has voted to overrule the landmark decision that came from the #RoeVsWade abortion case.
According to a report by Politico, the vote happened as a result of a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito.
The draft opinion sought to repudiate the original ruling of the 1973 #RoeVsWade case which gave American women the right to an abortion as a constitutional right.
It also sought to overrule another 1992 case of Planned Parenthood vs. Casey that largely maintained the reproductive rights of American women.
Although this ruling seeks to remove the right to an abortion for American women from the Supreme Court, debates around reversing the Roe verdict have been occurring actively since 2019.
Some American states have also banned abortion services as part of their state laws.
The final decision of the Supreme Court is still not known as it is a draft opinion. In the same report by Politico, it was however reported that some court watchers predict that though the conversative majority may be opposed to abortion, they may not flatly overturn the 49 year old precedent set by the Roe vs. Wade case.
Several people have reacted to the vote on social media. Feminist writer and speaker Mona Eltahawy said that the Roe vs. Wade case was particularly helpful in securing the reproductive rights of poorer Black and Brown women.
She mentions that the overruling would affect these women more including white women who are conservatives.
For tech lawyer Moe Odele, the Roe vs. Wade case is another example of the world policing women’s bodies.
She further clarified that Roe vs. Wade didn’t “give” women the right to an abortion but rather affirmed women’s right to choose a pregnancy based on the constitutionally recognized right to privacy.
If overturned, American women will no longer have the right to remove pregnancies they don’t desire and stand the risk of dying while performing unsafe abortions.
