THIS PAST week saw the second inauguration of President Bush and the start of another four years of his agenda. But it also marked the anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. On Jan. 22, 1973, Roe v. Wade recognized women's basic human right to control their own fertility and make their own childbearing decisions free of government interference. This anniversary prompted us to reflect on our condition 32 years ago, and to consider our precarious future.
Roe is a compromise, a delicate and sensible balance that carefully considers the religious, ethical, scientific, medical, legal and social aspects of reproductive freedom. It did not invent abortion, nor does it promote abortion. The rate of abortion has barely changed since Roe was decided. What has changed is the safety of the procedures. The huge decreases in maternal mortality we have seen over the past half century are in part due to the legalization of abortion. According to Planned Parenthood, in 1965, nearly one in five deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth were the result of unsafe, illegal abortion -- and that doesn't account for all the women who were permanently injured by dangerous procedures. Today, death and injury from abortion are virtually nonexistent in the United States. Roe v. Wade has saved the lives of countless women.
Today, women's lives are no longer in danger due to unsafe and unsanitary abortions. However, Roe itself is being threatened. The Supreme Court remains the front line of the battle to protect choice. The future of Roe v. Wade depends on the composition of the court, and with a change likely to occur soon, the future of our reproductive freedoms is at risk. Reproductive freedom is supported by a razor-thin margin: one vote. Replacing even one justice may tip the balance -- and ring a death knell for Roe v. Wade and women's reproductive rights.
Supreme Court justices are appointed for life and often remain on the bench for a generation or longer. What happens in the next four years may have repercussions for the next 40 years. On the campaign trail in 2000, Bush pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the justices most adamantly opposed to a woman's right to choose. If his picks for the lower federal courts, rabidly anti-choice judges far outside the mainstream, are any indication, it is likely Bush will try to keep that promise in his second term.
It's not only our right to legal abortion that's at stake. A world without Roe may signal the beginning of an era of intolerable intrusion into all our reproductive choices and other aspects of our personal lives. That's because every aspect of the right to privacy is related to every other aspect. The Supreme Court decisions that guarantee women reproductive freedom, like Roe and Griswold v. Connecticut (which legalized birth control for married couples), are all based on the same premise of a constitutionally protected right to privacy. Break one link, and the whole chain could fall apart.
Would any of us want to live in a world where something as personal as our right to decide whether or not to have a child is subject to governmental review? The majority of Americans who are pro-choice have a responsibility to stop President Bush from endangering our rights and betraying our values.
This month, 32 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade and allowed an entire generation of women to participate fully and equally in society. Unfortunately, opponents have been hard at work trying to dismantle these essential protections. Slowly chipping away at Roe with bills such as the partial-birth abortion ban, Bush's agenda has repeatedly proven to be anti-choice, anti-privacy and anti-woman.
Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis once said, "The greatest threat to freedom is an inert people." That's why it is so important that now, more than ever, we speak out. Contact your senator, write a letter, sign a petition, throw a fundraising party, participate in a protest. Pro-choice Americans need to act like the majority we are. It's time for us to stand up for our personal privacy and freedom to choose our own partners, raise our children and close the curtains when we get home so the government can't see in. If we don't, we could see the end of our reproductive and personal freedoms.
Melanie C. Dispenza is treasurer of VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood. Katherine A. Koen is vice president of the organization.
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