A huge shock in both the US and the Netherlands. A draft ruling from the US Supreme Court was leaked this week, meaning abortion is no longer legal in the US.
I won’t bore you with technical details. But if the draft ruling becomes final, US states will be able to decide for themselves whether and to what extent abortions are allowed. Half of US states are expected to see no major change. These are states where Democrats are generally in power. The other half of the states are dominated by Republicans, and the right to abortion is expected to be curtailed there: no longer allowed at 24 weeks, for example at 15 weeks.
You will say: You can talk about what is a fair term in a democracy. You have the passion of the woman and the passion of the fetus. There are arguments for zero weeks, there are arguments for 24 weeks, maybe even later. And in a democratic process like in the US states, you can work it together, of course without everyone being right in their own way.
But it’s unclear how that plays into the abortion debate. Certainly not in America. A 1973 Supreme Court decision (Roe v. Wade) took the decision of whether abortion was legal out of politics. Abortion is essentially legal in all states because women have a right to privacy (read: self-determination), the Supreme Court said in 1973. Republicans never accepted that ruling, and over the years they did everything they could to reverse it. And it seems to have succeeded in the end.
With that, the decision on abortion will come back to politics, to the states. In Europe (of course, we don’t have the US) it’s more normal: abortion laws differ in different European countries.
You’ll say: You can live with that. But many in America (and the Netherlands) see it differently. Emotions will run high in the coming months. I am very interested to see how this (draft) ruling will affect the midterm elections in November.
Maybe I should go that route again. God, Jesus, Trump – Part 3.
