{"id":231371,"date":"2020-09-23T12:43:03","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T17:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=231371"},"modified":"2020-09-24T00:52:48","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T05:52:48","slug":"roe-v-wade-happens-overturned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/roe-v-wade-happens-overturned\/","title":{"rendered":"What would actually happen if Roe v. Wade is overturned?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With the recent\u00a0death<\/a> of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the subject of Roe v. Wade<\/em> has been dominating the news cycle once again. Abortion advocates seem panicked over its potential overturning, while the pro-life movement is celebrating the possibility of the same. But few news outlets are truthfully discussing what would actually happen if Roe is overturned.<\/p>\n

Abortion before and after Roe<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Before Roe v. Wade<\/em> was decided in 1973, there was no federal right to abortion, but in the 1960s, individual states began to legalize it. Abortion advocates have repeatedly claimed that in the decades before Roe<\/em>, thousands of women were dying each year from illegal abortions, but this is false<\/a>. As the Washington Post explained<\/a>, most illegal abortions were actually committed secretly by physicians whose customers typically entered their facilities through the back entrance (hence the term “back alley abortions”). \u00a0Citing former Planned Parenthood medical director Mary Steichen Calderone as well as researcher Christopher Tietze, the Washington Post pointed out that the number of deaths from abortion had been declining for decades; by 1951, there were only 15 annual deaths attributed to abortion. Calderone credited this drop in deaths to antibiotics, as well as the fact that doctors were committing 90% of illegal abortions.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Still lying: Planned Parenthood repeats (and repeats) debunked claim on illegal abortion deaths<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By the time Roe<\/em>\u00a0was being considered, nearly 20 states<\/a> had legalized abortion. Roe<\/em>\u00a0made abortion into a “right” across the country under the “right to privacy” in the Fourteenth Amendment, striking\u00a0down all of the states’ existing laws on abortion and making it so that a woman could have an abortion up through the point of viability without government restriction. Roe’s<\/em> partner decision, Doe v. Bolton<\/em>, made it so a woman can have an abortion for “health” reasons, which leaves room for an extremely broad interpretation. Doe\u2019s<\/em> text notes that an abortion may be done after viability, stating \u201c\u2026 medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors \u2013 physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman\u2019s age<\/strong> \u2013 relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n