Home » About » Newsletters » February 1998
The Right to Choose at 25
By Howard Simon, Executive Director,
and Jessica Connor, Editor/Staff Associate, February 1998
January 22 marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark rulings recognizing a woman's right to an abortion, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. The ACLU was involved in both cases. Former ACLU President Norman Dorsen was among the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in Roe, and the ACLU of Georgia organized a trio of women lawyers to represent the plaintiffs in Doe.
Few in 1973 could have anticipated how explosive the issue of abortion would become and how difficult it would be to retain the right to choose. Nor could anyone then have known how much the availability of safe legal abortions would contribute to women's equality and health.
As the Court observed in reaffirming Roe in 1992, "The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives." Not having to endure unwanted childbearing has made a critical difference to women at all stages of life the teenager who hopes to finish her education, the woman who does not want a child yet, the overburdened mother who cannot cope with another child and the older woman who mistakenly believed she could no longer conceive.
The legalization of abortion has also dramatically improved women's health. Abortion services moved from back alleys into hygienic facilities staffed by health professionals. In the early part of this century, an estimated 800,000 illegal abortions took place annually, resulting in 8,000 17,000 women's deaths each year. Thousands of women suffered severe consequences short of death, including perforations of the uterus, cervical wounds, serious bleeding, infections, poisoning, shock and gangrene. After Roe, deaths as a result of abortion greatly declined. Today, abortion is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures and is ten times safer than carrying a pregnancy to term.
Since the landmark decisions of 1973, the greatest challenge has been to try to assure that the right to choose is not withheld from those whose lack of political power makes them easy targets for lawmakers: lowincome women and young women.
Bans on public funding for abortion deprive lowincome women of the means to exercise reproductive choice. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court held in 1980 that the federal constitution permits the government to withhold Medicaid funds for virtually all abortions, while continuing to fund all other medically necessary services, including prenatal care and childbirth. State constitutional litigation has succeeded in forestalling or overturning a number of funding bans. The restoration of reproductive freedom for lowincome women in Florida is still in court.
More than half of the states enforce laws that require minors to get permission from their parents or a court before they can obtain an abortion. Such laws create unnecessary delays and effectively eliminate the option of abortion for some minors. In the years since Roe many courts, including the Florida Supreme Court, have invalidated parental involvement laws.
As efforts to protect the rights of women continue, the backlash against reproductive choice has escalated. Vandalism, bombings, arsons and assassinations threaten to shut down many abortion providers. Clinics, doctors and advocates of choice helped persuade Congress to enact the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994. This statute prohibits force, threats of force, physical obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with people obtaining or providing reproductive health services. It does not apply to peaceful praying, picketing or other free expression by antichoice demonstrators so long as these activities do not obstruct physical access to clinics.
In their latest maneuver, opponents of choice have proposed bans on safe abortion procedures. Although sponsors characterize the bans as aimed at a single, "late," "gruesome" procedure, the bans are not limited to any stage of pregnancy, and they define the procedure so broadly as to include safe and common methods of abortion. To date, ten courts have overturned various bans in whole or in part. Last year, Governor Chiles vetoed the Legislature's effort to enact such a ban; a vetooverride vote is expected during this Regular Session.
The protection of reproductive freedom currently focuses on four battles in Congress: the Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraception Coverage Act, which corrects the lack of coverage in private health insurance plans for contraceptive services and supplies; the PartialBirth Abortion Ban Act, which would endanger women's health by prohibiting physicians from performing safe and common methods of abortion; "gag rules," which would prohibit private organizations receiving U.S. funds from speaking to women about abortion; and appropriations amendments restricting abortion funding, which prohibit the use of federal funds for abortions for millions of people who rely on the government for their health care.
Generations born since the 1960s take the right to choose for granted, according to current public opinion polls. If the right to choose is to survive and flourish, those who came of age after Roe must rise to its defense or they will lose it!
