The Overturning of Roe v. Wade
Rubi Orellana
The Supreme Court's leaked draft judgment indicating that it may overturn Roe v. Wade means that millions of women in more than half of the United States could lose access to abortions or find their access severely restricted. It would be a significant change in abortion law in the United States, but human rights groups believe it would also harm reproductive rights around the world.
NPR reported that Amnesty International's secretary-general, Agnès Callamard says the measure would "damage the global perception of the United States." It would also "create a dreadful precedent" that "other governments and anti-rights forces around the world might use to restrict the rights of women, girls, and other individuals who can become pregnant," she warned. In recent years, several countries, including some with strong Catholic populations, have made it simpler to have an abortion.
With the United States ready to overturn a constitutional safeguard for abortions, activists fear that authoritarian countries across the world will exploit the decision to justify further restrictions on their populations.
In a statement, Licha Nyiendo, chief legal officer of the group Human Rights First, said that the Supreme Court's draft opinion is a "step in a very dangerous direction for everyone in the United States and a frightening signal to authoritarians around the world that they can strip long-established rights from their countries' people."According to Tarah Demant, interim national director for programs, advocacy, and government affairs at Amnesty International, it could lead to new restrictive regulations in some nations. She told NPR that other countries would look to the United States to justify their own restrictions on reproductive rights.
Demant claims that overturning Roe v. Wade would stymie global progress on abortion rights. "Women and persons who have the potential to become pregnant have been battling for decades for the most basic right to health care, the ability to manage their bodies," Demant said. "And here, the United States, where we have had this basic protection, though it's never been adequate, is turning it back," Demant remarked to NPR reporters, “What a betrayal of the generations of people who have battled for this right. It's unthinkable to regress at this level.``
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