Harm Is Done to Women and Girls by Overturning of Roe by an Uninformed, Uncaring and Politicized Supreme Court

By JOHN GEYMAN, M.D.

The impacts following the recent overturn of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by the US Supreme Court already have spread widely across our country and further divided us. This ruling takes us back to the last century and has exposed for all to see the High Court’s failures to comprehend, anticipate, or even care about entirely predictable and complex consequences.

Of further concern is the threat by Justice Clarence Thomas on the far right, with his own unapologetic conflicts of interest, that contraception and same-sex marriage may be next on the chopping block. This is the first Supreme Court in our history that is removing rather than adding constitutional rights for Americans.

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we have already seen in widespread press accounts:

• A 10-year-old girl, victim of rape, denied abortion in her state;

• Other women being refused abortion and being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy;

• Women with ectopic pregnancy being denied surgery, with increasing threat to their survival and without any possibility of future delivery of a live infant;

• An increasing number of states banning abortion and even trying to block women from traveling out of state to receive an abortion;

• While medication abortion is safe and effective up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, some 30 states have restricted access to medication that could be so used;

• Increasing numbers of both women and men are seeking sterilization for fear of losing future access to contraception;

• Men are also unfavorably impacted by reversal of Roe v. Wade, since it affects their own life planning as couples and families.

• Physicians are threatened by lawsuit and loss of licensure if they deny evidence-based emergency care of women seeking termination of pregnancy;

• Confusion and even chaos in emergency rooms, where physicians are trying to deal with legal opinions, varied state laws, and their own legal risks when presented with pregnant patients under emergency circumstances;

• Increasing division between red and blue states where abortion is legal vs. illegal, even for rape or incest; and

• Lack of social support and safety net provisions for those women forced to give birth against their will, and without the means to support themselves and their infants.

Further complicating this issue is the fact that serious medical complications are more frequent in older women during pregnancy, while the average age of becoming pregnant has increased from 21 at the time of the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 to 30 today. It is estimated that maternal mortality, already higher than any other developed country in the world, will increase by 15% overall and up to 33% for women of color as a result of the Dodd decision overturning Roe.

How could this happen in what we thought was an advanced democracy that cares for its people? The answer is disturbing — a relentless war over five decades was won by conservatives, together with packing the Supreme Court with a right-wing supermajority and without a code of ethics, against the rights of women to terminate an unwanted pregnancy — a right that is recognized by virtually all advanced nations around the world. Latest national polls have found that 55% of respondents believe that the GOP has become too extreme on this issue.

Bad as this has already been, we are left with this same extreme Supreme Court for years to come, further threatening lack of enlightenment on other major issues facing the country.

President Biden’s executive order protecting access to abortion and reproductive health care, as well as his call for an exception to filibuster rules to pass legislation codifying Roe v. Wade into law, are welcome, but fraught by blockage in the Senate. Also welcome is the Disclose bill brought to the Senate by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), which would require disclosure of any contributions more than $10,000 to campaigns for future Supreme Court Justices.

Let’s hope that the increasingly dire prospects of continued inaction will mobilize political will among the electorate for the upcoming midterms, and later in Congress to consider such reforms as expanded numbers of Supreme Court Justices and term limits.

John Geyman, M.D. is professor emeritus of Family Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, WA. His latest book, now in press is “Are We the United States of America? Can We Hold Together as One Country?” His website is johngeymanmd.org. Email him at jgeyman@uw.edu.

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2022

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