New Scientist - UK (2022-05-14)

14 | New Scientist | 14 May 2022

News Insight

THE US Supreme Court appears

to be on the brink of repealing

Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that

protects the right to an abortion

in the country. Should the seminal

case be overturned, it will be left

to each state to decide whether

abortion is legal for its residents.

According to the Guttmacher

Institute, a reproductive rights

research group, 13 states have

so-called trigger laws ready that

would effectively ban all abortions

as soon as the ruling is overturned.

Another nine states have restrictive

abortion laws enacted before 1973

that will go back into effect if the

case is repealed. Four more states

are expected to pass anti-abortion

legislation as soon as federal

protections are lifted.

Six in 10 US women aged 13 to

44 live in one of these 26 states,

which are primarily in the South

and the Midwest (see “The legal

landscape”, right). Restrictions

in these states would range from

abortion bans after six weeks of

pregnancy (only two weeks after a

first missed period) to recognising

“fetal personhood”, which declares

that life begins at fertilisation and

bans all abortions. Some states

would allow exceptions in cases

of rape, incest or when the

pregnant person’s life is at

risk; others wouldn’t.

Several studies have found

that abortion rates aren’t lower

in countries with more restrictive

laws, but deaths due to abortion

are as much as 34 times higher.

These findings have been used to

suggest that such restrictive laws

don’t reduce the total number of

abortions, they simply reduce

the number of safe abortions.

Antonia Biggs at the University

of California, San Francisco, says in

the US in 2022, that isn’t precisely

true. She helped run the Turnaway

study, the most comprehensive

investigation to date of what

happens to people denied an

abortion. Biggs and her colleagues

interviewed nearly 1000 women

across the US, following up with

them for five years. They found

that, of those who were initially

denied an abortion, only about

20 per cent later obtained one.

“I don’t think I agree with this

statement that abortions won’t

go down. We know that they will,”

says Biggs. Data from Texas, which

passed a six-week abortion ban in

2021, supports this. Researchers at

the University of Texas at Austin

found that the state’s abortion

rate was cut in half in September

2021, the month the law was

implemented, compared with

the same month the previous year.

However, thousands of Texans

denied an abortion have travelled

to a neighbouring state to obtain

care in the months since the law

and the majority of them fall into

these categories, with 75 per cent

being on low incomes and 59 per

cent having had at least one prior

birth. In fact, the number one

reason people seek an abortion

is due to financial concerns. So,

many experts are concerned that

already underserved communities

will bear the brunt of a change in

US abortion protections.

“We are definitely going to have

individuals, families, communities

who are going to be further

impoverished, who are going to

be further marginalised from the

healthcare systems” if Roe v Wade

is repealed, says Brandi Shah,

a fellow with Physicians for

Reproductive Health, a US

advocacy organisation.

Will unsafe abortions rise?

People who are no longer able to

get an abortion at a clinic might

try to manage it on their own.

When performed properly,

abortion is as safe as common

dental procedures. The most

recent figures from the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention

show that in the US, there are 0.

deaths per 100,000 legal abortions.

However, when abortions

are performed in unsanitary

conditions or by untrained

providers, they can be deadly.

According to a study from 2009,

68,000 women die worldwide

from unsafe abortions every year,

primarily from haemorrhage and

infection. Another 5 million have

long-term health implications.

Sarah Prager at the University of

Washington says the medications

misoprostol and mifepristone

Activists demonstrating

in front of the US

Supreme Court on 3 May

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What is at risk if Roe v Wade falls?

State laws could restrict abortion in large parts of the US, and other reproductive

healthcare offerings may be at stake, reports Dana G. Smith

was passed. Clinics in Oklahoma,

for example, have seen a surge in

demand: before the Texas ban, the

wait was two or three days for an

appointment; after the ban, that

went up to four weeks.

“As states drastically limit

abortion access – they either

ban it entirely or they have earlier

gestational bans – you will see this

disruption in access from coast to

coast because there just are not

enough clinics and providers to

meet the need,” says Elizabeth

Nash at the Guttmacher Institute.

Travelling hundreds or

even thousands of kilometres

also isn’t feasible for many people,

particularly those who have a

lower income, need childcare or

can’t take time off work. In the US,

1 in 4 women will have an abortion,

23.

Maternal deaths per

100,000 live births in the US

“You will see disruption in

access from coast to coast

because there aren’t

enough abortion clinics”