Overturning Roe v Wade is Beneficial for Abortion Rights
Recently there was a leak that the overturning of Roe v Wade had been discussed in the Supreme Court. This of course has created widespread debates on the controversial topic of abortion.
This article is not about whether your opinion and stance on the topic are right or wrong. Instead, I will explain even though it sounds absurd, how overturning Roe v Wade is beneficial for abortion rights.
What is Roe v Wade?
First, let’s clear the air on what the ruling of Roe v Wade means and what overturning it means for the law.
The ruling of Roe v Wade gives a constitutional right to abortion in the United States without a lot of restrictions from state intervention. It largely protected the right to an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. It does allow for states to implement restrictions during the third trimester unless the health of the mother is at risk. And many states have some sort of intervention during this period.
Overturning Roe v Wade does one thing, gives the right of abortion restrictions back to the states. It does not ban abortion. Many states will not have any changes to their abortion laws. It allows the regulation of abortion rights back to the people who live in those states.
Psychological Reactance
No one likes being told what to do. Everyone has a rebel inside of them, especially young kids, they like to see what they can get away with.
A better example of this is when you were a kid and right as you were about to clean your room your mom tells you to clean your room. At that exact moment, you no longer want to go clean your room. Not because you didn’t want an organized room, but because you were told what to do.
That feeling of rebellion is called psychological reactance. You are reacting to rules or regulations or requests that limit your freedom, that tell you what to do. Humans are simple in that regard, we do not like being told what to do.
This reactance is the exact reason why people are fighting to keep the ruling of Roe v Wade. Because overturning it could lead to a decrease in your freedom to have an abortion and an increase in being told what to do (being told to birth your child). It is all very rational thinking, we are rational beings after all.
The Opposition to Roe v Wade
When the government tells us that we are not allowed to implement restrictions on abortions we get the same reaction. Since we are told what we can and can not do. We lose our freedom to choose what our state believes should be the proper regulations on abortion. This is the reason for the urge to overturn Roe v Wade. Oddly enough it is because it limits our freedoms.
Let the People Choose
So how can overturning Roe v Wade be beneficial for abortion rights? Well, it is because instead of fighting the opposition and telling them they don’t have the option to regulate abortions. You give them the option to regulate abortions and eventually they will choose a liberal view of abortion.
If Roe v Wade gets overturned it is likely that some states will impose harsh restrictions on abortions. In the short term, this is harmful, as some women might not get the proper treatment they need because they are denied an abortion.
They could end up getting an illegal abortion which could cause infections or even death to the mother. Or if the baby is born, they are more likely to be brought up in an unfavorable living situation.
Abortion Lowers Crime
In the book Freakonomics, they reference how the implementation of Roe v Wade not allowing to ban abortions significantly lowered the crime rate. This is because when mothers aren’t allowed to have abortions their child is more likely to be brought up under the poverty line and only being raised by one parent (typically the mother). This means the child will be more likely to get involved in a life of drugs and crime.
Once these women were allowed to have an abortion the crime rate dropped because children weren’t being raised in a bad situation and weren’t going to a life of crime because they weren’t being born.
The overturning of Roe v Wade will lead to an increase in infections/death in pregnant women and an increase in crime in the states that ban abortions. It will take time for these changes to be seen and it will be detrimental to our society while these states have a ban on abortions.
These changes in death rate and crime should then be reflected so that the cause is because of the abortion ban. You can use econometrics and statistics to show that these increases are because of abortion regulations.
Eventually, these states with the abortion ban will see and understand that the abortion ban creates a worse living situation for the people in their state. It needs to be shown that the downside of banning abortions is worse than the downside of having an abortion. In other words, an increase in crime and uncertainty in your state is worse than the death of an unborn child. In the end, these states will change their abortion laws to be more favorable toward abortion rights.
Long-term Outlook
The problem with this idea is that it is a long-term outlook on how the world can come to peace on such a controversial topic. This won’t happen within the next 10 or even 20 years. It might even take our entire lifetime for the states to change their mind. Because of the longevity of this plan, it is completely irrational to agree with it. I don’t care about abortion rights if I’m dead.
Laissez-Faire Economics
I like to think of this idea as someone would look at Laissez-Faire economics. If you leave the market alone and let it do its thing it will always correct itself, every single time. But the question is, how long will it take to correct itself? So long that well all be dead by the time it does correct itself? If so why not do something about it so we aren’t living in a recession our entire life.
It’s rational to be self-interested. So even though other plans, ideas, and policies could be better if implemented for the long term why should I care if I’m dead by the time the policies are actually beneficial for myself. We want abortion rights the way we want them immediately. Even if waiting a bit for the political market to correct itself is better for abortion rights as a whole, we are self-interested with a demand for instant-gratification beings.
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