Raising Up Abortion and Equality

On the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Dean and professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, Sandro Galea, writes in US News and World Report that:  “Reproductive rights worldwide are inextricable from gender equality and human rights, particularly the human rights of women.”  Two recent international developments confirm this worldwide understanding.  First, late last year, a high court judge in Belfast found that Northern Ireland’s restrictive abortion law was “incompatible with human rights.”  Second, just days ago, the UN announced that Peru will compensate a young woman forced to carry an anecephalic fetus to term because state health workers refused to perform an abortion.

Meanwhile, activists in the US are increasingly raising up the ways in which abortion access contributes to US women’s equality.  From the amicus brief of women attorneys who have had abortions, to the 1 in 3 campaign, to the Draw the Line campaign with real women’s stories at the core, women’s equality is the central theme.  Importantly, these campaigns focus on experiences of women across class lines, rather than highlighting impacts of abortion restrictions on low income women who cannot afford to travel to far away clinics or who may not be able to pay for a night in a hotel room during a mandatory waiting period.  When it comes to abortion, women’s options certainly differ based on their resources, but the impact of abortion restrictions on women’s equality resonates across classes and hopefully, in the well of the Supreme Court, too.