Should nation celebrate Roe vs. Wade ruling? - Yes

Women should make own reproductive-health decisions

Wednesday January 23, 2013 5:38 AM

My office is in an abortion clinic.  Every day I walk past protesters, and then through a waiting room filled with women and those who have joined them for support.  Some women are nervous, some are relieved. I am grateful because I know they will get excellent medical care from qualified and caring doctors and medical professionals. That wasn’t always the case.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Roe vs. Wade 40 years ago, abortion was for the most part illegal in America.  Wealthy women were able to use their financial resources to obtain safe abortions either here or abroad.  Poor women weren’t so lucky.  In the 1930s, my grandmother was told by her doctor that the pregnancy she was carrying would likely kill her, leaving my grandpa a widower and her children orphaned.  He told her, “You better find a way to take care of it,” and sent her on her way. 

Like millions of other women, she found a way to “take care of it,” either with a coat hanger or some sort of poison. Some women did this to themselves; others found someone else to do it for them.  So many women got sepsis from these unsafe abortions that big-city hospitals actually had sepsis wards. Some died. Those who survived were often left infertile. Thanks to the Roe decision, sepsis wards no longer exist because abortions are now provided by qualified medical professionals.


Without Roe, some women still would have abortions — unsafe, illegal abortions.  And unplanned pregnancies still would result in some women becoming moms, but not by choice, rather by circumstance, by force, by law.  Abortion opponents say they want to end abortion, but instead of working to reduce unintended pregnancy, they work to make abortion inaccessible, unaffordable, shameful and illegal. Their approach doesn’t work.  It never has. Not at any time in history, not anywhere on the globe.  So what does work? Increasing access to abstinence-based comprehensive sex education and birth control.  Fewer unplanned pregnancies equals fewer abortions

Politicians opposed to abortion are systematically eroding access to abortion, contraception and comprehensive sex education.  During the last session, more legislation limiting these services was introduced than in the past 10 years combined.  As a result of the new restrictions that went into effect, some women now must travel to other states to access abortion care.  The restrictions resulted in Ohio physicians performing routine tests earlier in pregnancy to give women critical information before the new laws allow politicians to make private medical decisions for them.

Medicine should be practiced by medical standards, not political standards.

Though Roe legalized abortion, it also said that the personal private decisions about health care belong to you and not the government.  Not your spouse. Not your mom. No one but you.  Without it, women are not truly free, and would not be full citizens of this country. 

After 40 years of Roe vs. Wade, it is time to put the politicking, the shaming and the arguing behind us. I am sick of hearing politicians argue over when or if any abortion should be allowed, and what types of rapes are “legitimate.” All women must have the right, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, to make their own medical decisions based on their situation; no matter whether they decide to parent that child, to place it for adoption or to have a safe, legal abortion.

It is time to stop allowing politicians to pass medically unnecessary and burdensome restrictions. It is time to stop withholding insurance coverage and funding for abortions.  It is time to stand up and say once and for all, reproductive-health-care choices should be made by women and no one else.  And that woman should have access to the education and medications she needs to make the best decisions for herself and her family — without having to consult local politicians. 


Kellie L. Copeland is executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio.