US Supreme Court’s abortion ruling remains a ‘live wire’ a year on
The aftershocks of the US Supreme Court’s decision overturning a constitutional right to abortion will continue to reverberate through US politics as voters mobilise against tough new restrictions backed by Republicans, the head of America’s top family planning organisation has said.
The comments from Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood, came on the eve of the first anniversary of Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the court’s conservative majority upended access to healthcare for women across the US by removing federal protections for the procedure enshrined in Roe vs Wade.
Johnson says that since the Supreme Court ruling was handed down thousands of Americans have been denied access to abortion, and in Planned Parenthood clinics it was “not uncommon” to see both patients and providers in tears as they adapt to the new restrictions.
Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and presidential hopeful, has signed a bill for his state to move to a six-week ban, while Donald Trump, the frontrunner, has boasted that he was able to “kill” Roe vs Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court precedent protecting abortion rights in the US until last year. On Capitol Hill, some Republicans have continued to champion a national ban.
But Johnson insists that the backlash is as strong as it was a year ago and may even be building. “If you can’t control when and if you become pregnant, you aren’t able to control so many other factors in your life,” she says.
“That kind of government interference in people’s personal medical decisions, obviously is something that draws independents out, and persuades them to participate. It draws progressives out and amps up that base, and I think it brings out a lot of people on the right for whom freedom and privacy are fundamental values”.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:James Politi
