To the Editor:
Re “Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade” (nytimes.com, June 24):
Although the Supreme Court ruling is not surprising to many, it will shock and dismay many. Half of the states are likely or certain to ban abortion.
A woman faced with an unplanned pregnancy but denied access by the state to a legal abortion is a captive of her condition. She is forced to be a vessel to deliver a fetus, subject to the dangers and traumas of pregnancy, and forced to have childbirth in a nation that has a shamefully high rate maternal mortality.
According to the Turnaway Study, denying an abortion can have serious long-term consequences for a woman’s physical and mental health, financial situation, and family life.
As the 13th Amendment prohibits involuntary servitude, state laws that forbid abortion must be challenged in court. We cannot allow such a cruel deprivation of a woman’s life, liberty and happiness.
Steve Nelson
Williamstown, Mass.
To the Editor:
I became living proof in 1975 that no contraceptive is 100% effective, just three weeks before my scheduled sterilization. My first instinct was to have an abortion. I was not a mother-material person. But I decided to keep the pregnancy.
Four and a-half months into my first pregnancy, I was informed that the inflamed right leg was suffering from a bloodclot. In fear of the clot causing me to die, I slept in bed with a full-length, surgical stocking on my elevated knee. The misery was followed 22 hours of labor, a painful experience that was so overwhelming, I was certain I would die.
As wonderfully miraculous as my son was (and is), I couldn’t get sterilized fast enough. I would never go through that again. Justice Samuel Alito, and his ilk, could not experience this. Who is he, or any other person, who cannot experience the consequences and risks of pregnancy to force any woman into them?
Sara R. Nichols
Los Angeles
To the Editor:
Against the backdrop of Friday’s draconian Supreme Court decision to overturn the hard-earned right for women to control their own bodies, there is a sorely overlooked factor — the other half of the pregnancy, the father. Imagine if every pregnancy required a paternity testing and the male progenitor to be named. How different the law would be.
Imagine if 50% of all pregnancy and birthing medical expenses were owed to the male. Imagine the same thing happening for child care expenses. Let’s stop the battle of when life begins and move it to when does responsibility begin? If responsibility begins at the point of conception for the males involved in every pregnancy, let’s see how quickly women’s health decisions are decriminalized and abortion rights laws remain.
Rosanne Somerson
Westport, Mass.
To the Editor:
Precedent guides lower courts and the Supreme Court. It is important to ensure consistency in legal interpretation. Even though we may not agree with a decision, precedent gives plaintiffs and defendants certainty from their day before justice. As Justice Clarence Thomas says, people must “live with outcomes we don’t agree with.” But if the court won’t follow these words, why should the citizens?
All this has a silver lining: Supreme Court decisions are not lasting, but they are temporary. We can simply change the composition of the court and hear the case again, freed from the burdens of stare decisis. The abortion foes’ persistence in overturning precedent has paid off. This too will pass, as the Persian proverb says.
Tim O’Donoghue
Charlotte, N.C.
To the Editor:
Roe has been overturned. What was an abortion like before Roe?
When I was in college, I experienced a terrifying abortion in the 1960s. I organized a back-alley abortion in New York City on my own. The brother of a friend and a seminary student encouraged me to tell the parents. I did. My father took me to Copenhagen to get a legal abortion in a hospital. But once there, the hospital said I couldn’t have an abortion because I wasn’t a citizen. I had to have a back-alley abortion.
I went back to college and got a fever. I was admitted to the hospital and underwent dilation and curettage. The doctor told me that I was likely to die if I didn’t wait until the next day. I was informed by the college that I had had an abortion and it suspended me for one year. I went to Paris for a “year abroad” as a cover. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even my friends.
Sara Cummins
Belmont, Mass.
Source: NY Times