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A US Senator from New Jersey, Cory Booker has described the Supreme Court ruling which overturned its decades-old Roe v Wade decision as painful.
With its decision on Friday, June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned two historic decisions it made in the past, Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992).
The decisions had respectively established and affirmed a constitutional right for women to obtain an abortion.
With the latest decision, millions of women in the country will lose their constitutional right to abortion.
The senator, however, affirmed that women must be able to have control over their bodies rather than the state.
In a tweet on Friday, Booker wrote, “This is a heartbreaking day but we will not give up. This is painful and wrongly decided but we are not defeated. We must fight to regain our freedoms. Women must be able to control their own bodies. It will take work & organizing & sacrifice but we shall overcome this decision.”
Similarly, in a statement sent to SaharaReporters, Booker described the ruling as a defeat, but quickly add that they are “not defeated”.
“This is a heartbreaking day. The hurt of too many is inexpressible. The pain and the fear and the grief and anger, and the outrage, and outrage, and outrage,” he said in the statement.
“And yet, we know: This is not a time to curl up, give up or shut up. It is time to get up; to stand up, to speak up.
“It is a time to speak words that heal and help, to speak words that reaffirm our commitment to the cause of our country: the cause of liberty from government oppression, the cause of freedom, the freedom to control our own bodies.
“This ruling is a defeat, but we are not defeated. They delivered their conclusion, but this is not our end. They handed down their decision, but we still claim our right, our power to choose; to choose to fight on; to choose hope over despair; to choose each other and the infinite strength therein.”
Booker, the 53-year-old first African-American U.S. senator from New Jersey, urged Americans to help people who will suffer most as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision.
He said, “We must now choose to heal, to help, to serve those who will be most directly affected by the consequences of a radical decision by their majority that the majority of all Americans firmly disagree with.
“They overturned Roe but we shall overcome Dobbs. We will not allow our country to turn back to the dark days of our past. We will organize, galvanize, mobilize, like our ancestors did when they faced such painful and consequential setbacks.
“Our nation has faced horrible decisions before, like Plessy v. Ferguson and like Koramatsu; decisions that trampled on constitutional rights with decisions that were so clearly wrong. And yet our ancestors never descended into despair; they rose up, never gave up, and fought on with new strategies and an old and ever present commitment and conviction to this country’s hope and promise to all.
“We are defined in this moment by how we choose to react – how we face setbacks and suffering; how we rise when knocked down; how we work through fatigue and frustration; how we help others who are impacted most from this decision; how we bring heart despite our hurt; and how we keep summoning grit despite our relentless saturating grief.
“Today is heartbreaking. But we are not broken, we are strong, and we will never give up until this decision is overcome and our cause of freedom is again won.”
Background
In 1969, 25-year-old Norma McCorvey, known by the legal pseudonym ‘Jane Roe’, became pregnant with her third child and wanted an abortion. But living in Texas meant Roe could not get an abortion except when necessary to save the mother’s life.
Roe claimed she was raped but the case was rejected. She was forced to give birth.
Her attorneys, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade.
In 1973, her case made it to the Supreme Court.
Roe’s lawyers had described Texas’ abortion laws as unconstitutional and a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in her favour.
Subsequently, Texas’ abortion laws were subsequently declared unconstitutional but the parties appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision holding that state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional.
The Court resolved these competing interests by announcing a trimester timetable to guide all abortion regulations in the US.
During the first trimester (in the first months of pregnancy), there is an absolute right to an abortion. During the second trimester, there will be some government regulation, but only for the purpose of protecting maternal health and not for protecting foetal life.
During the last trimester, abortions could be regulated or banned by the state as the foetus nears the state where it could live outside the womb.
In 1992, a legal case known as Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey was decided by the Supreme Court. It redefined several provisions regarding abortion rights as established in Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973.
