Abortion Laws Sweep the Nation

Kennedy Leehealey, Journalist

Ever since the medical advance that allowed abortion, there have been ongoing debates on the ethics of the matter. However, in 1973, the matter was settled in the Roe vs. Wade legal case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that states’ regulation of abortion is unconstitutional.

This legal case seemingly brought the matter of abortion to a close. However, in the beginning of May this year, the issue resurfaced, starting with Alabama. Republicans of Alabama started attempting to overturn the ruling of Roe vs Wade with a new bill completely banning abortion, with absolutely no exceptions. Their idea was to make this bill so outrageous and extreme that it would without a doubt make it to the Supreme Court, where the matter could once again be considered.

Georgia and Ohio soon followed with a similar “heartbeat bill”, which bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into the pregnancy. This is problematic, considering some mother don’t even realize they are pregnant until after they are six weeks along, which means they would not get a choice in the matter.

However, these actions against abortion have received a lot of backlash from the public. Women started to fight back against bans using social media as their main platform. The movement was led by actress, Busy Phillips, who tweeted about her own teen abortion story.  She urged other women on social media to reach out and share their own abortion stories utilizing the hashtag, #YouKnowMe. She then shared the shocking statistic from the Guttmacher Institute Researchers’ study, saying that almost one in four women (23.7%) in the United States will have an abortion before the age of 45. By sharing this, she hoped to bring awareness to how common abortions are and why they should not be banned.