Democrats are already focusing on abortion rights as a key issue in the upcoming midterms less than a day after Politico reported that the United States Supreme Court is drafting a majority opinion, striking down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in all states.
“Republicans just gutted Roe v. Wade, the Constitution’s guarantee of reproductive freedom, and will ban abortion in all 50 states if they take over Congress,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., posted on Twitter Monday night after Politico published a leak draft of the SCOTUS decision. “Only Democrats will protect our freedoms. That is now the central choice in the 2022 election.”
The leaked document, a February draft of the court’s majority ruling authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, overturns the 1973 case and the related Casey case from 1992 upholding the federal right to an abortion.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the draft reads. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said in a post on Twitter that the Senate should immediately pass an abortion rights bill and eliminate the filibuster to be able to get it through the chamber with the 50 votes Democrats currently have.
“Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW,” Sanders’ post said. “And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes.”
The House passed legislation 218-211 along party lines in November 2021 that would greatly expand the scope of abortion rights, rollcall.com reported at the time.
“If we don’t act fast, women’s ability to access abortion care across the country could become a thing of the past,” co-Chair Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said before the House vote. “The urgency was never as great as it is now with the Texas law and the Mississippi law and the cascade of laws, and that’s why we are bringing it up now.”
The SCOTUS decision upholds a Mississippi state law banning abortions after 15 weeks when a heartbeat is usually detected in the fetus.
More than 20 other states are preparing to ban, or severely limit, abortions should the court overturn Roe.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 629,898 legally induced abortions were reported to the agency in 2019, with almost 60% performed on women in their 20s.
The CDC reported a rate of 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44, and a ratio of 195 abortions per 1,000 live births.
A USA Today report from May 2019 said that just 1% of abortions were performed due to criminal rape, and less than 0.5% were due to incest, based on data from the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute.