Choice is right
Issue 105 - 28 June 2022 (8-min read)
For a country that takes a lot of pride in its freedom, the United States seems to be on a path to roll back a lot of it for its people.
This week, The Global Tiller examines the recent US Supreme Court decision on abortion and what it means for the rest of the world. We take a look at how other countries fare in terms of abortion rights for women and how banning abortion poses an even serious threat of state surveillance.
The US Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on Friday, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists. The decision, most of which was leaked in early May, means that abortion rights will be rolled back in nearly half of the states immediately, with more restrictions likely to follow. For all practical purposes, abortion will not be available in large swaths of the country.
This ruling is a big blow to women’s rights in the US and is likely a precedent for its conservative-tilting Supreme Court to overturn other progressive rulings, such as same-sex marriage, consensual homosexual conduct and protected rights of married people to have access to contraception.
Most of the world received this news with outrage and many US allies voiced their concerns, a rare move in itself. French President Emmanuel Macron criticised the Supreme Court for curtailing women’s rights along with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson who called it a "big step backwards" while acknowledging the decision will influence thinking outside US borders. Even the UN leadership reiterated its position on abortion, adding that such rulings don’t prevent abortions, they just make them deadlier.
It is hard to agree with Boris Johnson on many things but he is right when he says that this ruling will influence thinking around women’s reproductive rights around the world. Conservatives in other countries are taking notes on how to curtail such freedoms while others who fear a conservative onslaught are taking preemptive measures. For instance, France is moving a bill to enshrine abortion rights in their constitution before their own growing conservative movement gains a foothold in the parliament and follows US footsteps.
Up until this ruling, the overall progress on abortion was moving in the right direction. Nearly 60 countries have liberalised their abortion laws — though some only incrementally — over the last 25 years. At least 75 countries, including Colombia, Argentina, Ireland, South Korea and New Zealand, have fairly progressive abortion laws that allow the procedure on request. In fact, the US stands out as an anomaly as it joins three other countries (El Salvador, Nicaragua and Poland) that have rolled back abortion rights since 1994.
It is important to note, however, that a country’s laws don’t always accurately reflect the situation on ground. On paper, Pakistan has fairly liberal abortion laws — the country’s penal code, derived from Islamic law, permits abortion until up to 20 weeks gestation, but the practice holds great taboo. Medical practitioners often refuse to perform abortions or do so only in secret based on the incorrect belief that the procedure is against religion or Pakistani law. Nevertheless, Pakistan has an annual abortion rate of 50 per 1,000 women, according to a 2012 survey, the highest in South Asia and one of the highest in the world. Since most of these procedures happen outside formal healthcare facilities, Pakistan also has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in South Asia.
When it comes to abortion, everyone — regardless of their ability to carry a baby in their womb — has an opinion. Without any regard for the medical complications that make abortions necessary or any support system in place for the pregnancies that are forced to complete term, anti-abortion movements are fighting to keep women from having any autonomy over their own body.
And banning the procedure now won’t just take us back to illegal and unsafe abortions but pave the way for widespread state surveillance and criminalisation of pregnant women. Any woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to term for any reason could potentially be investigated as a criminal with invasive data collected from period-tracking apps and Google searches acting as evidence admissible in court.
This paints a bleak picture of the future. So how can we protect our communities from the ripple effects of anti-abortion laws? Is a company offering to pay for your travel to another state for an abortion going to solve the problem or do we need to use the collective power of corporations — since most governments are beholden to their whims — to push back harder?
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Dig Deeper
What does a coat hanger have to do with abortions? A twisted piece of wire isn't just a symbol of dangerous abortions; it's a symbol of inequality.
…and now what?
The reversal of Roe v. Wade in the US is an indication of many disruptions that are happening in the world.
First, and this one is quite clear, it shows us the power of ideology and what mobilisation towards a clearly defined goal can produce. The work to reverse Roe v. Wade started even before the Supreme Court took the decision in 1973 and continues to this day. It unfortunately proves Margaret Wheatley’s famous point: “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” This is exactly what happened.
Second, it also shows how, when facing the evidence of a coming change, individuals, communities, countries can be completely unable to move or to adapt. This reversal was, as I said, in the works since a long time. Even the draft of the reversal decision was leaked a few months ago.
Yet, no group opposed to this decision has managed to accomplish a single efficient thing to either block it (although it may have already been impossible) or somehow reduce the impact of it. It shows a major flaw in the way we envision progress: we tend to see it as a constant line going up, never envisioning it as a succession of ups and downs that eventually allow us, on the bigger scale, to move forward. But humanity’s history is full of setbacks and pauses in political, social, technological progress. The very idea of progress in itself is not a clear one and comes with ideological biases.
But eventually, we tend to underestimate our own natural ability to go back while changes around us are too intense, too uncertain, too disruptive. Just look at how people reacted to Covid-19 restrictions: too much change, too much discomfort and too many misunderstandings pushed our communities to dig into the dark trenches of conspiracies.
Third, it’s not just about the law. It never is. When talking about how we envision our societies, we should never rely only on our formal rules. Ethics, the materialisation of our values, goes way beyond the limits of our formal rules. Because those rules are usually based on a compromise between ideas and ideologies. Hence they will never go as far as the values that we’re trying to uphold. They are a milder version of them because they need to be as inclusive as we can to maintain the fabric of our societies.
So yes, a court precedent is never enough. Even an article in the Constitution may not be enough, even if constitutions are sometimes called the Supreme Law of a country. Because laws are just tools and they are as weak as our will and ability to respect and enforce them.
You can see that clearly when Hira talks about how abortions work in Pakistan. You can also see it in the 2012 French law that allowed marriage for all. In Tahiti, a far more religious country, many mayors refused to implement the law and administer gay marriages. They would send a deputy or find other ways to make it too complicated for people to do it. They were not breaching the law per se, the law was just not as efficient.
Decades of women’s rights movements have proven women deserve to live a life of dignity and equity. And we also know since decades that this will require the collaboration and commitment of everyone, not only women. Have we educated men on the subject since? No. Have we evolved in our portrayal of women in society? No. Have we made a single thing besides political speeches or dedicating one day a year for them? Not really.
Yet we are surprised when we wake up to the fact that suddenly these rights are taken away. Why? It’s shouldn’t come as a surprise because some people with a clear goal and a strongly rooted ideology have been working relentlessly to get their agenda achieved. And they did.
We shouldn’t take inspiration from these people for many things: their inability to live and let live; their inability to admit that their ideology is just an ideology and not a universal truth; their inability to accept that people may think differently. But there’s one thing we should be impressed with: they never give up. They don’t expect for things to happen out of the blue or out of the hope that our nature, history, the universe or a magical unicorn will come down from the sky to save us all (well actually they do but slightly differently…). They walk the talk and they work hard to get things done.
So as we’re all wondering what we should do to get things done to protect women’s rights, to fight against climate change, to tackle social inequalities, to foster diversity, maybe we should start getting our hands in the soil and start the hard work. It won’t be romantic, it won’t be Instagram-y, it may not even work fast (it took the "Pro-Life" movement about 50 years), but it may actually work.
As Alicia Garzia, the cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement, was saying: “We gotta stop looking for easy answers and instead join the hard work.” So let’s work hard for those ideas if we want to pretend they represent a high ideal of what humanity should be.
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury