It’s been a big week for the United States Supreme Court. The one that everyone appears to be focused on is the Dobbs decision that overturns Roe v. Wade. Here’s a link to the Supreme Court blog that has the decision.
A couple things to note:
- The decision is over 200 pages long, I seriously doubt anyone commenting on it has read it through at this point, or seriously parsed it out.
- The right to an abortion is now a matter decided by each individual state. Yes, a number of states are going to ban it. Yes, this will have an impact. No, it won’t be as much as either side is claiming which I will get to in a moment.
- Despite the fearmongering, this is not going to impact things like Ectopic pregnancies where the woman’s life is threatened (and the child isn’t viable).
The practical impact is that there will be state’s where it is legal and those that it is not. When Roe was decided you had to see a doctor to get a pregnancy test which was both expensive and time consuming, now you can get one for about a dollar at the local store. Travel was much more limited back then versus how it is currently (that of course could change with future lockdowns, future gas prices or electric cars). The reality though is that even without this decision a lot of people if they wanted an abortion had to travel a fair distance to get one due to limits of places that offer an abortion. This hasn’t changed significantly with or without this decision.
While experience may prove otherwise, the number of abortions in this country will probably diminish somewhat but not but a large number.