An initial draft of a Supreme Court Opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, was leaked online and published by the news organization Politico. The document declared the Court’s intentions to overturn the landmark case Roe v. Wade which protected a pregnant woman’s freedom to choose to have an abortion. This is a heart-shattering step back in the progress of women’s rights that has rendered Americans across the country, regardless of gender, outraged and horrified.

After almost 50 years since women were given control over their own bodies, a male majority Supreme Court has begun the process of taking away the fundamental right to abortion. “It feels like we are regressing in time,” said sophomore Ashna Uprety. 

Alito’s draft opinion presents the question of whether the Court can set a national legal precedent regarding abortion, as opposed to relegating abortion laws to the states. He argues that the “right to abortion [is] not …implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” using an evidently- outdated, flawed logic that abortion rights should not be fundamentally protected simply because there is no mention of abortion in the Constitution. 

Alito erroneously concludes that Roe v. Wade set an unsubstantiated legal precedent when in reality, Roe maintained a woman’s control over her body. Therefore, by extension, decisions like abortion fall under the Constitution’s “implied privacy”. He argues for the side of the state interest but ignores the fact that the state interest has long relied on religious arguments such as fetal viability and “ensoulment of the fetus” in order to criminalize abortion.

Alito believes that the overturning of Roe v. Wade is justified due to the case being, in his opinion, “egregiously wrong from the start”, but fails to mention the right to bodily autonomy which Roe recognized. “I think this is an outrage that this has been brought up again and that we even have to fight for the right to privacy,” said sophomore Meilani Wilson.

Analyzing abortion laws in America requires a comprehensive perspective on socioeconomic, societal, racial and individual influences. Not only do abortion laws impact women, but specifically women of color, who have greater risks of dying in childbirth. “It’s not like women will stop trying to get abortions. Women might turn to backstreet, unsafe practices that are detrimental to their health,” said Uprety. 

Widespread disparities in financial access to healthcare and contraceptives in minority communities correlates to the fact that most abortions are obtained by minority women. More than half of abortion patients in 2014 were mothers, the majority of abortion patients are in their 20s and the risk of dying in childbirth is 14 times higher than the risk of dying from a safe abortion. These statistics only highlight the impact that abortion laws have on the women who need them. 

The makeup of the Supreme Court itself is not representative of those affected by abortion restrictions. Although progress has been made towards racial and gender inclusivity, the majority of the people in power in our country are men. Uprety said, “There aren’t any laws that restrict what men can do with their bodies, and it’s obvious why.”   

While the moral and religious qualms with abortion are often brought up by the anti-abortion platform, at the end of the day, abortion is about bodily autonomy; it is about government intervention in an extremely personal, intimate and difficult part of women’s lives. To be mandated by the government to carry and birth another human is an egregious breach of privacy and of human rights, and now all women across the country face the consequences of the government overstepping.

Ironically, conservatives take the view of less government intervention and more individual rights —battling against the mask mandates during the pandemic citing the right of personal action and body—but their opinion changes when it comes to women and their bodies. This is not about the Constitution, morality or the life of a fetus; it is about controlling women.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade would be a devastating and infuriating encroachment of basic human rights for women across America. Those who cannot become pregnant will never understand the fear, struggle and pain of women who have had and need abortions. Men can sit in chairs and vote on legislation about a woman’s uterus without worrying about how that law will affect them— because it will not. By attacking those who receive abortions, whether that occurs in a Planned Parenthood parking lot or by banning abortions altogether through federal law, women are reduced to simply their reproductive organs; our country must do better.