Roe v. Wade: Are We Going Back There--Again?

Thirty-nine years ago when I worked at the Features desk at the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, I remember one of our most beloved newswriters yelling at the top of her voice about an issue that, at the time, had marked nearly its Tenth Anniversary on the time clock.

Kaffie Sledge shouted, after just one more bit of it slid across the newswire in 1983, "Oh God! Are we going back there again?! I'm really just sick of talking about the whole thing!"

It was possible she was being quite hormonal after finding out that she was pregnant with her second child right around the time her only son was turning 25, but her point about revisiting "the topic" was well-taken.

IT was Roe v. Wade, as in Jane versus Henry, a landmark case that started in Texas, and as of 'here lately' in 2021, is still sitting in Texas with a bunch of mainly mainstream white males with seeming control issues who are still 'prodding women's private parts with what is deemed to be mental speculums'.

If you read through the entirety of the original case and its Georgia version, Doe v. Bolton, which was dismissed as having no legal standing to sue, you will find much lengthy discussion of legal and moral theories that date and pre-date Rome and the formulation of constitutional rights in the United States.

Part of it reads "Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant; that she wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion 'performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions'; that she was unable to get a 'legal' abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by the continuation of her pregnancy; and that she could not afford to travel to another jurisdiction in order to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions. She claimed that the Texas statutes were unconstitutionally vague and that they abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. By an amendment to her complaint Roe purported to sue 'on behalf of herself and all other women' similarly situated..."

Coming Up on Fifty

Nearly 50 years later, it should come as no surprise that this case is still making headlines out of the same state in which it started - Texas. The tug'o'war between Texas and the rest of the nation has been unending since the 1850s and with them, if it 'ain't' one thing, it's another.

As a matter of information, Dallas, Texas and some parts of Ada and Tulsa, Oklahoma, have been in a religious salad toss since the onset of the mega-church mentality that was so popular in the 1990s. 

However, when they start making Black women a focal point of fighting for the "right to life" even as their own #BlackLives and that of their Black children have been tossed in the nation's 'who care about your Black life' ash cans, someone needs to take 99 steps back and hold their sanctimonious self-righteousness on the same side of the street they were on when #SandraBland was murdered in that same state with no right to her own life. She, too, was somebody's baby.

If a late-term abortion is an issue for them, then the VERY LATE LATE TERM abortions of Bland, Breonna Taylor, Kenneth Walker, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant, Sean Bell, and hundreds more before them and since then immediately tells us that no one has a right to demand of Black women any more than they have already given.

At one point, the media was reporting that Black women were the victims of 'genocide' because they had the most abortions, but if one took the time out to find the actual facts that lead to the truth - the only time Black women tend to have more abortions is between the ages of 13 and 21. Other than that age group, white women's abortion rates always exceeded that of Black women to the tune of 1.5 to 2-percent or more, especially later in life when the risk to the mother is higher because of things like HBP or diabetes.

Let's Get to the Bottom Line

In the final analysis, since, as Kaffie said, the topic was dated and worn out in 1983, it is most assuredly not something we should still be dredging through the mud 38 years after it was already old.

As a woman who had four pregnancies and four live births, I would not be the one standing in anyone's way when it comes to the moral decision about something no one but she has to live with for the rest of her life.

I'm the only one who can decide, forty-three years later when my oldest son's son starts his freshman year at Kennesaw State and when my oldest granddaughter gives birth to her own son, my great-grandson, that -regardless of all the nights when I couldn't breathe if the phone so much as rang in the middle of the night-that it was worth it. It was MY choice, not the state's or anyone else's, to put myself through that hell. Therefore, any woman who doesn't want to go through it, I will absolutely stand by her absolute right NOT to have to live like that if she does not want to.

Whether a woman chooses to abort or not, the main life she needs to concern herself with is her own.

As selfish as that sounds, it really is the bottom line, unless the State of Texas and all others want to pull up their Big Boy Panties and take responsibility to provide that mother with a lifetime of support and then make sure all their sons and daughters get full-ride college scholarships as well.

If the state is going to play Big Daddy with other people's lives, it better also be prepared to leave money on the table on the way out. 

Once she is forced to birth 'on behalf of the state' regardless of her own wishes, that child is no longer her responsibility, it's theirs ... all the way to adulthood, and possibly even beyond.

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Resource

Department of Justice - Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, September 6, 2021

Statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Regarding Texas SB8

The U.S. Department of Justice today issued the following statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland regarding Texas SB8:

“While the Justice Department urgently explores all options to challenge Texas SB8 in order to protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons, including access to an abortion, we will continue to protect those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services pursuant to our criminal and civil enforcement of the FACE Act, 18 U.S.C. § 248.

“The FACE Act prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates, or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services. It also prohibits intentional property damage of a facility providing reproductive health services. The department has consistently obtained criminal and civil remedies for violations of the FACE Act since it was signed into law in 1994, and it will continue to do so now.

“The department will provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack. We have reached out to U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and FBI field offices in Texas and across the country to discuss our enforcement authorities.

“We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the FACE Act.”

If you have an incident, concern, or questions, please contact the FBI at FBI.gov/tips or through the complaint portal civilrights.justice.gov.

Topic(s): Civil Rights Component(s): Office of the Attorney General

Press Release Number: 21-837