INDEPENDENT of the political affinity one has and, even being independent, the majority tendency in a polarized United States continues to be the defense “of potential life”, as indicated by the Supreme Court of Justice in the ruling that left the wrong interpretation that for half a century was held that abortion was a constitutional right.
This is evident after the mid-term elections a week ago in which, despite the fact that the Democrats, led by President Joe Biden, made the right to abortion their campaign banner, referendums were presented in only six states on the issue, some of them to incorporate it into the state constitution, others to relax the current restrictions and one of them, Kentucky, to explicitly eliminate the voluntary termination of pregnancy from its regional political charter, which was imposed with the 52 % of votes.
After the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice, last June, when after a detailed and prolonged examination of the Roe vs. Wade ruled that the Constitution of the United States “made no reference to abortion and none of its articles implicitly protects that right”, putting an end to almost half a century of a progressive doctrine, half of the States of the American union have implemented in their legislation since the exceptions and the time in which the interruption of a pregnancy could occur until the total prohibition of said practice.
In the decision of the Supreme Court, it was insisted that it is up to the legislators and not the courts to prohibit, endorse or restrict such a delicate issue and hence the responsibility of legislating on it was returned to the representatives elected by the citizens.
At the time, Missouri was the first to effectively put an end to abortion and a dozen more such as Wyoming, Tennessee or South Carolina announced legislation to stipulate the specific cases in which it could be performed, among others, for being the product of rape or endangering the life of the mother or the fetus and the maximum time in which it could be carried out, generally established at 20 weeks.
With an eye on the midterms, Biden and his party raised the flags of the defense of democracy and, within them, the right that assists women to decide about their reproductive health, among which they included interrupting the pregnancy without reason. of any risk. “We must fight peacefully and defend both the right to abortion and other personal liberties at the polls,” the Democratic president said at the time.
Hence, for the last appointment at the polls, independent, feminist and pro-abortion organizations promoted referendums to establish that “right” in six states, while, in Kentucky, where this practice is illegal, the conservatives submitted to the popular vote an amendment to the state charter that would have made it impossible to challenge the ban in that state, but was defeated by 52% of the vote.
Three states -Michigan, Vermont and California- held referendums to enshrine the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy in their constitutions, while another -Montana-, in line with Kentucky, presented an initiative to limit it.
In California, where regulations to facilitate abortion had already been admitted, voters approved measures that will guarantee access to abortion and contraception in the constitution. Actually there in the so-called “Proposition 1” that right was not in dispute, because it was already included in the State legislation and the state Supreme Court recognized it as such since 1969.
In the same way, Vermont’s so-called Reproductive Freedom Amendment, to introduce a change in its Magna Carta that establishes that all citizens of the state have reproductive rights, which includes access to abortion, was supported by the electorate, as was in Michigan where the electoral result will prevent the reactivation of a 1931 law that prohibited abortion in all its cases, including rape or incest.
In North Carolina there are restrictions on abortion and it is prohibited after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the Republicans tried to revive a previous prohibition to the Row v. Wide that forbade it completely. Hence, the Democratic governor Roy Cooper (whose position was not at stake in these midterms) will maintain the power to block any restriction on abortion.
In Pennsylvania, where termination of pregnancy is accessible, but is prohibited after 24 weeks of fertilization, did not promote a referendum but rather a poll to determine if it was one of the greatest concerns of voters. And this was confirmed by the poll.
It may interest you: Four dead in a violent attack at a US university
Montana, for its part, was the fifth state to raise – and approve – a consultation on the subject. Where it is illegal and restrictions were prohibited since the Supreme Court ruling, the so-called “Law for the Protection of Children Born Alive” was submitted to a popular vote, which contemplated declaring the fetus as a legal person with the right to medical care, including when they are born prematurely with little chance of survival or if they are still alive after an attempted abortion. However, it was rejected with 52%. The situation does not change the current ban on that practice.
And in Kentucky, where andWith few exceptions, abortion is prohibited, such as when the life of the mother is in danger. By a narrow margin, voters said “no” to amendment 2 of the state constitution, which, as we noted earlier, sought to iExplicitly include that she did not consider terminating the pregnancy as a right, definitively shielding her from any subsequent attempt to change. The result of the polls opens the door for initiatives to allow it.
For now, the abortion map contemplates that it is totally prohibited (there is no exception) in four states; they maintain the restrictions (maximum time limit for doing it and medical circumstances, especially of the mother) in 23 and it is as accessible as it is legal in another 23, in the so-called progressive regions that, under Democratic control, exacerbate this fight arguing the rights of women to their privacy and decide on their body.
On the national scene, President Biden’s promise to promote a federal law to enshrine the right to terminate a pregnancy is ‘aborted’. The reason is that with one of the houses of Congress in the hands of the Republican opposition, as indicated by the slow vote that yesterday registered 212 seats for the conservatives, six short of the majority, and 205 for the Democrats, there is no chance of approval there, as in the Senate where although his party retains control with 50 seats and the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, they are not enough to prevent filibustering, which is the powerful strategy by which they can hinder indefinitely the legislative processes. To block the filibuster, the votes of 60 senators are needed.
He has another path left, for now distant and unfeasible, if he wants to fulfill that promise: expand the number of magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice to reverse the majority conservative trend. However, this procedure, known as “court packing,” must have the endorsement of Congress, where it would have no future with a Republican Chamber.
Political analysts such as Frank Ravitch, chair of Law and Religion at the University of Michigan, recall that while “the size of the Supreme Court is not mandated by the constitution,” its number of justices has not changed since the 19th century. And here it is also worth insisting that these positions are for life and most of its current members, particularly all the conservatives, are young, so it is highly unlikely that there will be a vacancy in the short term.
In this way, it will remain in the hands of state legislators and not national courts to prohibit, endorse or restrict the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, as expressed by the Supreme Court magistrates in their ruling last June on Roe vs. Wide, in which they also admitted the “damaging consequences” and the division that generated the “offensively incorrect and terribly wrong” interpretation that the members of the high court had in 1973 on that case.
Abortion map in the US
Forbidden (without exception): Alabama, Arkansas, Dakota del Sur and Tennessee.
Restricted (severe restrictions): Arizona, South Carolina, North Carolina, North Dakota, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Legal and accessible: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawái, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Nuevo México, Oregón, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia y Washington.