More than half of the states have promised to ban abortion after the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in the US. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion, prior to fetal viability, across the country, has been overturned.
The authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives, according to the opinion of Justice Samuel Alito. The decision was 6-3 with three justices dissenting.
Since a draft version of the decision was leaked, it was expected. 50 years ago, profound changes in the lives of women in the United States and in the structures and wellbeing of families were created.
The rate of marriage in the United States has halved since the early 1970s. The number of women who don't have children has doubled and the number of women who don't work because they are raising children is half of what it was.
Women have been able to make choices over the past 50 years because of legal, safe abortion. Some of the choices and life paths may not be available again now that the law has been changed.
According to Philip N. Cohen, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, the ability to decide when to have a child is a pillar of the modern family. Abortion rights are central to women's progress, and are part of a package of self-determination and independence that are important to women's lives.
It is important to point out that the January 1973 decision of the US Supreme Court doesn't represent a single moment when abortion access in the US changed. The decision had to be made by the state legislature. In the late 1960s, 11 states loosened their total ban on abortion to allow exceptions for rape or incest or to save the lives of women. Alaska, California, Hawaii, New York, and Washington state legalized abortion for their own residents and for women with high incomes.
The effects of legal access to safe abortion in those states over a three year period gives economists and social scientists a natural experiment. Only the residents of Alaska, Hawaii and Washington state benefited from legalization there. California, New York, and Washington, DC are population centers. Only about half of the states participated in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's count of abortions in 1969. The state data shows that abortions increased after local legalization and decreased after nationwide legalization. Women initially went to states where abortions were available, but they didn't need to do that now.
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