Roe v Wade and Bangladesh
The Supreme Court of the United States has overturned the Roe v Wade decision, which means women living in the United States will no longer have access to safe abortion.
How does it affect Bangladesh?
This ruling will have impacts all over the world, including Bangladesh, by fueling anti-abortion movements, limiting funding and hurting local efforts to expand SRHR around the world including the right to contraception.
Share-Net’s Statement
The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade and remove the constitutional right to abortion has deep implications for health and reproductive rights in the US and globally. It is a violation of fundamental human rights for women and pregnant people internationally; ensuring that abortion will become illegal or highly restricted in twenty US states, criminalizing women and pregnant people, and entering an era of unsafe abortion.
At Share-Net International, we believe that all people have the freedom of choice, are able to make their own informed decisions, and can access and take action on their sexual and reproductive rights and needs. This decision is a direct violation of our core values – we condemn this decision in the strongest terms and will continue to further access SRHR knowledge and information in all ways possible.
We firmly believe that SRHR services are a fundamental element of human rights, including the right to access safe abortion, self-determination, and the ability to make informed choices over bodily autonomy. We stand in solidarity with those who protect and advocate for abortion rights and access in the US and globally, and those seeking abortion information and access.
Removing access to abortion care does not stop abortions or the need for abortion, forcing those seeking abortion services/care to find unsafe and illegal ways to terminate pregnancies. Abortion bans constrict people’s control over their bodies and futures, disproportionately affect historically and structurally marginalised peoples, and could lead to the repeal of other rights. Criminalising abortion also opens space for those who have naturally lost their pregnancies through miscarriages or experienced a stillbirth to be potentially investigated as a crime. Things like online browsing and search histories, text messages, location data, and information from period-tracking apps could all be used as indicators by prosecutors that pregnancy loss may have been a deliberate act. The implications are astonishingly worrying for the SRHR world and reproductive rights.
Share-Net will continue to fight for better access to SRHR and the production of SRHR knowledge globally. We stand by all women and pregnant people in solidarity, and will not stop advocating for these fundamental rights.
History of Roe v Wade (Source: BBC News)
In 1969, a 25-year-old single woman, Norma McCorvey using the pseudonym “Jane Roe”, challenged the criminal abortion laws in Texas. The state forbade abortion as unconstitutional, except in cases where the mother’s life was in danger.
Defending the anti-abortion law was Henry Wade – the district attorney for Dallas County – hence Roe v Wade.
Ms McCorvey was pregnant with her third child when she filed the case, and claimed that she had been raped. But the case was rejected and she was forced to give birth.
In 1973 her appeal made it to the US Supreme Court, where her case was heard alongside that of a 20-year-old Georgia woman, Sandra Bensing.
They argued that abortion laws in Texas and Georgia went against the US Constitution because they infringed a woman’s right to privacy.
By a vote of seven to two, the court justices ruled that governments lacked the power to prohibit abortions.
They judged that a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy was protected by the US constitution.
