When Roe v Wade was overturned in June 2022, there was a lot of confusion and debate over the implications of this. People were saying it was good to outlaw abortions and some people were saying it wasn’t. There was even a whole debate couched in generalized confusion about how action this would impact women as a whole.

But with the law overturned, let’s look into what it used to do and be about.

Roe v Wade is a law about legal rights for people in pregnancy. It includes a lot of rights surrounding abortion and the person having the right to choose. It is not forcing anyone to get abortion care. It actually protects the right to not abort, as well, intrinsically.

Common arguments against Roe were that it was created to force underpriviledged women into having abortions they didn’t want. This was backed in data studies showing that after Roe was created, many more underpriviledged women were having abortions.

While I will not pretend that is unfounded on the public side, I will suggest that if a policy is being used by underpriviledged communities, it may not be because they are forced into engaging in its benefits. And as far as data is concerned, that is a reverse correlation error. It shows a gross data manipulation. People who benefit from a service are often not those forced into using it. People who benefit are often willingly taking part.

While the argument sounded nice, it comes down to a misunderstanding of data science and a belief in correlation meaning causation. Considering Roe was made in response to a denial of services, the reverse correlation makes no sense. The confusion also comes down to a fundamental marketing ploy to “help” mothers by denying them bodily and medical autonomy. I cannot blame the public for buying into a good marketing campaign.

But what was Roe meant to respond to and why is this a bad campaign?

Roe was created as a response to doctors and communities that were refusing abortion care and other services in the same family of care (which actually expands all the way to rights surrounding birth control) to women on unfounded reasons. Conversely to the idea that we were asking underpriviledged women to have abortions, the medical perspective at the time was to encourage a pregnancy, even if it were unsafe to the mother or there was another reason the mother had that was not up for a medical debate.

This means that the most common argument for overturning Roe actually was a misunderstanding of the practices that led to Roe, as well as a misunderstanding of how data correlation and causation work. Bad data science can have great marketing.

The common argument against overturning Roe had to do with a modern response to the benefits women’s healthcare has created because of Roe. When people were able to legally and medically access abortion care, abortion procedures used for another medical need were easier to access and came with less stigma in the doctor’s office.

To be brief: the medical procedure for an abortion is procedurally the same as that for helping a miscarriage leave the body safely. Both require the same medical specialty to perform one, both have the same steps (maybe not all are used in both), and both are equally taxing, traumatizing, and emotionally draining on the person – in deciding to get one and in actually going through with the procedure (sometimes both at once).

One common argument was that Roe being overturned would be used to justify making miscarriages and related care illegal. People who never experienced this being used as violence were often confused, saying that’s not the intent of overturning Roe. The people complaining said it was going to allow abusive (or out-of-touch) lawmakers to place restrictions and stipulations over medical interventions they had no business making.

My mom seemed to agree that such a thing couldn’t happen in the US of A. I seemed unsure of what was going to happen. The people complaining were right.

First of all, more and more states are allowing medical facilities to deny abortions or ar taking it upon themselves to deny a medical facility to perform one. This has created horrific law enforcement effects and other legal implications for women’s rights.

Recent laws have shown women being arrested for miscarriages. Police in some states are now allowed to classify a natural body function as murder. This shows an issue of how taking away the right to do something is often allows violent (or even improperly trained or just aloof) people to gain more control. This is furthermore seen in the effects of how domestic violence is changing in court systems and laws due to Roe being overturned.

Roe being in place helped domestic violence victims. It helped allow law enforcement to be ethical and reasonable. With Roe, an abuser who claimed a miscarriage was violence would maybe be taken seriously but, legally, nothing would happen to the woman who experienced one. This is a common occurrence of domestic violence, actually.

In domestic violence, often abusers will (after illegal means of first forcibly impregnating a victim) respond to a miscarriage with further violence on their victim. The abuser will take it upon themselves to punish their victim for having a miscarriage (which, again, is a natural body function and indicative of only that). This violence is horrible.

(We are not even going to touch the horrible extreme of an abuser forcing a pregnancy, violently causing a miscarriage, and then violently punishing the victim. That not only is too close to home, but also shys away too much from a discussion around Roe.)

When Roe was in place, an abuser who did this to someone was privy to being arrested and the police could yell at the victim all they wanted for “scaring” someone with a miscarriage but were barred from legally holding her accountable. Law enforcement were not allowed allowed to hold a victim accountable for a natural body function. This used to be the standard way to handle the case. There were no alternative responses allowed.

In post-Roe contexts this victim gets blamed for the abuse perpetrated on them.

Why? With Roe no longer in place, laws have been created for miscarriages to be treated as a murder charge. This means that legally the victim of abuse has done a worse crime than the abuser. Legally, and in the court system, murder is regarded as a worse offense than domestic violence. It’s legally then viewed as irresponsible for holding someone accountable for their responses to watching a legally-defined murder happen.

And let’s say someone is experiencing a miscarriage and 911 is called. In a post-Roe world you can no longer do this if you don’t want someone arrested. 911 calls often involve a law enforcement response when 911 has assessed the presence of a crime. Post-Roe laws allow 911 to be sent not to help the person suffering but rather to arrest them.

It creates a whole slew of issues when miscarriage happens and there is also domestic violence present. Now laws have to follow logical flows of who committed a “worse” crime (although I still fail to agree that a natural body function is a worse crime than being brutally abused or beaten, in any context). It harms women and people who are experiencing sexual and physical domestic violence. Police cannot help them well.

Roe protecting abortion rights helped allow domestic violence proceedings not to victim blame or DARVO victims of abuse through laws and court efforts that by disallowing the argument about miscarriage as violence. Without Roe, we see that victims of sexual abuse are even worse off if there is co-occurring physical abuse. Abusers are now legally justified in arguing that they were victim-blamed for a reaction to witnessing a murder. (Still not murder and still definitely not how victim-blaming works, in any context alive.)

Sexual abuse is already hard to convict. Most legal systems are so harsh in their investigation procedures that victims have a difficult time getting their charges validated or even getting proper help, even if not from the legal system. Victims often report feeling like reporting sexual abuse/violence was a worse experience than if they never had.

Physical abuse is much clearer, in many cases. Legal systems seem to know what to do with physical violence in a much more competent aspect. They still have issues of victim blaming within this, and sometimes do get this wrong. There is still a culutre of not being able to have a legal way to distinguish physical violence from what looks like violence but was understood to be a mental health crisis and a messy crisis intervention effort. In a way, that’s a more nuanced issue. It however is not part of repercussions of Roe.

In a legal context, anything that looks like violence or can be proven to be violence is immediate grounds to be criminally convicted. Roe helped allow victims of violence to get better and kinder outcomes. Without Roe, common features of domestic violence are open to be legally placed on the victim. This is sometimes done instead of placing blame on the abuser, and is sometimes done in addition to holding an abuser responsible.

This is why Roe being overturned ultimately failed victims of violence.

Abusers now get to make absolutely henious arguments and those are allowed in a court of law as reasonable. Somewhere in the court history we can connect overturning Roe to a general court stance against victims of violence. The overarching issue still stands, though, that courts are also against survivors of violence in that overturning Roe is overturning one of the only protections victims had in a court setting. Without Roe, any argument about being undeserving of police intervention or force is denied instantly.

When Roe was in place, victims of henious sexual and physical violence could be assured that an abuser couldn’t get away with abuse for having an abusive mindset. Without Roe, that mindset, that a miscarriage or other such normal bodily function is abuse, allows police and law enforcement to get away with victim blaming and over policing.

Over policing is seen when courts victim blame reactions to abuse and violence.

At least with Roe, the abuser needed a better argument. Without it, there’s a wide field open to allow abusive policing, over policing, and incompetent policing – all forced on victims and survivors of abuse who don’t meet “perfect victim” ideals. To overturn part of women’s rights is to overturn their ability to be protected.

Protect women. Protect victims. Stop domestic violence.

XOXO,

Dorothy B