The women’s lives in danger in a post-Roe America
Jessica Glenza reports on the supreme court ruling and the profound consequences it will have for women facing unwanted pregnancies across the United States
On Friday the US supreme court overturned Roe vs Wade, the legal precedent that had protected the right to an abortion since 1973.
After the decision, 26 state legislatures moved to ban abortion immediately or as soon as practically possible. This will leave millions of women without access to a legal termination in their home state. Many will have to travel hundreds of miles to access a safe abortion in another state or try to terminate their pregnancy themselves.
The Guardian’s health reporter Jessica Glenza tells Nosheen Iqbal what this ruling means for women facing unwanted pregnancies, and what it could signal for other rights historically protected by the court.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said: “We should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” These judgments refer to the right to obtain contraceptives, the right to sexual intercourse with a person of the same sex, and the right to same-sex marriage. “We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents,” he said.
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