Rita Panahi: Calling Roe Vs Wade decision anti-democratic is perverse

Wherever you stand on the issue there is no denying that what the US Supreme Court did was to hand back power over abortion laws to state legislatures, where they belong.

Abortion is an issue that inspires a feverish response particularly from those at polar opposites of the debate.

On the one side you have the pro-life activists, who believe life begins at conception and abortion is always murder, and on the other extreme are the pro-choice activists who champion a women’s right to abort for any reason well into the third trimester, indeed right up to birth.

If you look at the manner in which the media cover this emotive issue, one could mistakenly conclude that the majority of the population falls into these two camps when for most people, of both sexes, the issue is far more nuanced.

Many of us who are pro-choice early in the pregnancy and want abortion options to be readily available in the first trimester are strongly against late-term abortions, except in the rarest of circumstances when the mother’s life is in jeopardy.

In the US, where extensive polling has been completed for many years on attitudes to abortion, a clear pattern has emerged; one can be pro-choice and support strict controls on late term abortions.

Abortion is an issue that inspires a feverish response.

The majority of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in some cases, illegal in others, according to Pew Research data published last month.

Only 19 per cent say abortion should be legal in all cases, and 8 per cent say it should be illegal in all cases. These are the two extremes, the rest of the population falls somewhere in between where they understand that what starts as a “clump of cells” becomes a human life, and viable outside the womb well before 38 weeks.

Around 60 per cent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances in the first trimester but a strong majority are against second and third trimester terminations.

At 14 weeks only 34 per cent say abortion should be legal.

One of the more startling images of the past week was a heavily pregnant woman protesting against the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade who had “not yet a human” written on her enormous belly.

One woman protesting the decision had “not yet a human” written on her enormous belly. Picture: NBC News

Her position is as extreme as any pro-life activist who says taking the abortion pill in the first 10 weeks is tantamount to murder.

The Pew Research data is backed up by a number of other polls including the Associated Press-NORC poll published last week which showed 61 per cent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances in the first trimester but 65 per cent said abortion should usually be illegal in the second trimester with that number rising to 80 per cent for third trimester abortion.

Even in this age of fake news and hysteria, I have seldom seen so many wildly inaccurate and uniformed takes on an issue than the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, which many legal experts from both sides of the debate have long acknowledged was a deeply flawed law that conjured up a “constitutional right” to abortion.

This ruling doesn’t say abortion is illegal, it hands the determination back to each individual state. To call the decision anti-democratic is perverse; abortion rights have been handed back to the citizens and the representatives they elect in each state, the same as here in Australia. That’s called democracy.

It’s been illuminating in the past week to see the number of BLM-loving male feminists indulge in the most ugly racism and misogyny in slandering two of the justices who voted to overturn Roe v Wade, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas.

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas has been subjected to racism since the decision was handed down.

And it’s worth pointing out to those planning to take to the streets this weekend that the Mississippi law that the Supreme Court also upheld bans abortion after 15 weeks … that’s later than many European nations including Spain and France. But don’t expect the activists to protest outside French and Spanish consulates like they protested outside the US consulate in Perth this week. France had a ban on abortions after 12 weeks that’s been now expanded to 14 week, which is still more restrictive than Mississippi.

Among those arguing against the expansion to 14 weeks was French president Emmanuel Macron who argued that abortions later in pregnancy were “more traumatising” for women. He also said that extending abortion rights was “not neutral in terms of a woman’s trauma” and that though abortion was a right “it’s always a tragedy for a woman.”

But on the weekend Macron joined other world leaders in expressing their outrage.

He tweeted: “Abortion is a fundamental right for all women. It must be protected. I wish to express my solidarity with the women whose liberties are being undermined by the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Wherever you stand on this issue there is no denying that what the Supreme Court did was to hand back power over abortion laws to state legislatures, where they belong.

One can be pro-choice and against any state banning abortion altogether and still respect the democratic process that sees the citizens of each state elect lawmakers that will uphold their values.

Believing in democracy means accepting decisions you don’t like.

Just like those who don’t support late-term abortions have to accept that states such as New York have elected representatives who have implemented some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world.

It’s not perfect but democracy remains the best form of government we have.