WASHINGTON (CNS): In a 5-4 decision on June 24, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned its nearly 50-year-old decision in Roe v Wade that legalised abortion in this country.
The court’s 213-page ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation was not totally unexpected due to the leak of an opinion draft a month earlier. The ruling emphasises that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court’s majority opinion. Casey v. Planned Parenthood is the 1992 decision that affirmed Roe. Alito was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
The court’s reversal of its long-standing abortion ruling brings abortion policy decisions to the state level. At least half of states in the US plan to ban or restrict abortions with this decision in place, and 13 states had trigger laws in place set to ban abortions upon the reversal of Roe v Wade.
A friend-of-the-court brief submitted by the USCCB stressed that abortion is not a right created by the Constitution and called it ‘inherently different from other types of personal decisions to which this court has accorded constitutional protection’
USCCB
Alito, writing for the majority, said: “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.”
US Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB] called the decision a “historic day in the life of our country, one that stirs our thoughts, emotions and prayers.”
In a June 24 statement, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, USCCB president; and Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chairperson of the conference’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities said, “We pray that our elected officials will now enact laws and policies that promote and protect the most vulnerable among us.”
A friend-of-the-court brief submitted by the USCCB stressed that abortion is not a right created by the Constitution and called it “inherently different from other types of personal decisions to which this court has accorded constitutional protection.”
Referring to the court’s major abortion decisions, the brief also warned that if the Supreme Court “continues to treat abortion as a constitutional issue,” it will face more questions in the future about “what sorts of abortion regulations are permissible.”
…a serious and shared reflection on life and the protection of motherhood would require us to move away from the logic of opposing extremisms and the political polarisation that—unfortunately—accompanies discussion on this issue, preventing true dialogue
Andrea Tornielli
In an editorial in Vatican News and L’Osservatore Romano, Andrea Tornielli, editorial director at the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, wrote that the overturning of Roe v Wade “could provide an opportunity to reflect on life, the protection of the defenseless and the discarded, women’s rights and the protection of motherhood.”
The editorial said that throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has advocated for the protection of all human life, including the life of unborn children, “the most defenseless and innocent among us.”
The pope wrote in Evangelii Gaudium [The Joy of the Gospel], his 2013 apostolic exhortation: “Nowadays, efforts are made to deny them [unborn children] their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.”
The defense of unborn life “is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right,” the pope wrote. “It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development.”
Tornielli wrote in his editorial that “a serious and shared reflection on life and the protection of motherhood would require us to move away from the logic of opposing extremisms and the political polarisation that —unfortunately—accompanies discussion on this issue, preventing true dialogue.”
Almost one in four new mothers who are not entitled to paid leave are forced to return to work within 10 days of giving birth
Andrea Tornielli
The editorial said, “Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase,” adding, “In the United States, according to data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the maternal mortality rate has gone from 20.1 deaths of women per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020. And, strikingly, the maternal mortality rate for black women in 2020 was 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.9 times the rate for white women.”
It stressed that being pro-life also means helping pregnant women welcome new life, which requires a response to studies that show that in the United States “about 75 per cent of women who have abortions live in poverty or have low wages.”
In addition, Tornielli noted, “16 per cent of employees in private industry have access to paid parental leave, according to a study published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry” in 2020. “Almost one in four new mothers who are not entitled to paid leave are forced to return to work within 10 days of giving birth.”
Tornielli expressed the hope that the debates following the court decision “will not be reduced to an ideological confrontation, but will prompt all of us—on both sides of the ocean—to reflect on what it means to welcome life, to defend it and to promote it with appropriate legislation.”
