Opinion/Sorrentino: Roe v. Wade strictly about a woman's right to privacy
Mary Ann Sorrentino, a journalist and trained health-care administrator, was also the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island from 1977-1987.
Like all of you, I awoke last week to bold headlines and stunning TV news openers proclaiming that Roe v. Wade, the law that had legalized abortions by protecting privacy in America, had been shouted down.
Critical to keep in mind is that abortion rights can also be guaranteed by states, and currently 35 of the 50 states have laws permitting abortions whatever the federal law says. If the days since have taught us nothing, they should be knocking on every American’s cerebral door of vigilance. Freedom of choice – or reproductive freedom as it is more commonly called today – is a fragile right at best, and it can be wiped out, apparently in little more than a sweep of the pen being held by today’s conservative political majority and lawmakers wanting their support.
Yes, whether a woman will have the right to seek a safe and legal abortion in the early weeks of any pregnancy depends on whether the mostly male and heavily conservative majority of politicians in Washington and in our home states will protect that current and precious right. One more alarming reality regarding that same majority of politicians is that politicians – with very few exceptions – care about getting elected and re-elected much more than they care about reproductive choices (or almost any other singular issues) – except those involving huge campaign dollars as donated by some big businesses, for example, which have much more influence on lawmakers than women seeking abortion rights.
Again, most of those candidates, as men, do not know the terror felt by a woman missing a period and instantly worrying that she may be pregnant despite her best efforts to avoid that. They have never experienced the anguish of looking ahead and seeing one’s life changed enormously and the despair of knowing that the means for care and the human and financial support that is needed to raise a child, plus the lifelong commitment parenting demands, are an unfulfillable probability in many cases.
Even the most vigilant use of effective birth control methods available to many can fail. Passion happens: those least able to set up contraceptive barriers or put on the brakes can plant the seed that in nine months will be a human being with a lifetime of needs. In pregnancy and the early years of childhood, most of those needs overwhelmingly fall to the mother.
On the opposite side of the gender spectrum are the thousands of men in the legislative majorities of state and federal lawmaking committees which, ultimately, govern every aspect of American lives. Among those is the right to privacy which is what the famous Roe v. Wade decision is really all about. You can read the decision online. In doing so you will see that Roe has been upheld – originally and now – not because the Court wants to weigh in on the question of abortion but because the Court has – at least since 1973’s pronouncement on Roe – focused on the right to privacy, which has implications far beyond the abortion question.
THAT is really what Roe is all about. Not, “Go ahead and have an abortion if you have to” but, “Choose the best legal option that works for you in this circumstance.”
Unstated, but clearly implied, is that this decision is really none of anyone else’s business!
Some people (and lots of them, apparently) need to focus more on their own affairs and leave their neighbors to do the same. All Roe is saying that whatever choice a woman makes she will not be breaking any laws. No judgements needed – whatever her choice! End of discussion.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Opinion/Sorrentino: Roe v. Wade strictly about a woman's right to privacy
