The ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that repeals the consideration of abortion as a constitutional right deepens the division and political polarization in the United States. While the Democrats have come out in a storm to criticize the Supreme Court, the Republicans have celebrated the decision. The president, Democrat Joe Biden, has pointed out that it is a “sad day for the court and for the country.” Biden has asked Congress to restore the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy as federal law in Congress. “This is not over,” he has said. It will not be easy for you to do so. Republicans have applauded the ruling, promising to pass anti-abortion laws in the states they control.
Both parties will try to use the interruption of pregnancy as an electoral trump card before the mid-term legislative elections on November 8, in which a third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives are renewed. With Biden’s popularity plummeting due to inflation, and poor electoral prospects putting Democrats at risk of losing control of both chambers, abortion can serve to mobilize his voters.
Biden has called to defend abortion on November 8. “This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot”, she has stated, referring to the historic decision Roe contra Wade of 1973, which legalized abortion throughout the United States. “This is a sad day for the country, in my opinion, but it doesn’t mean the fight is over,” he added. The president has also called for the protests to be peaceful. “There is no need to intimidate. Violence is never acceptable,” he said.
The president has described the sentence as extreme: “So extreme that women could be punished for protecting their health. So extreme that women and girls may be forced to give birth to their rapist’s child. stuns me So extreme that doctors will be criminalized for doing their duty. Imagine a young woman burdened with a child as a result of incest. There is no option. Very often, poor women will be the most affected. It is cruel”, said Biden, who recalls that the laws that criminalize abortion date back to the 19th century. “The court has literally set America back 150 years,” she has said.
“The health and lives of the women of this nation are now in danger,” considers Biden, who has highlighted that the right to abortion had been maintained with judges appointed by Republican presidents and that “there have been three judges appointed by a president, Donald Trump, who have been at the core of today’s decision to tip the scales of justice and remove a fundamental right for women in this country.”
Precisely, on the opposite side, former President Donald Trump has said in statements to Fox News: “It is the will of God.” The decision “follows the Constitution”, he added. In a statement he has added that it is “a great victory for life” and has taken credit for the appointment of those three judges.
The one who was his vice president, Mike Pence, who is considered the ideologue of the conservative renewal of the Supreme Court, has celebrated the news: “Today, life has won. By dropping the case Roe contra Wade, The United States Supreme Court has given the American people a fresh start on life. I commend the majority justices for having the courage of their convictions. By returning the issue of abortion to the states and the people, this Supreme Court has righted a historic wrong and reaffirmed the right of the American people to govern themselves at the state level in a manner consistent with their values and aspirations.” has written on his Twitter account, emphasizing that the precedent that instituted the right to abortion has been thrown “on the ash heap of history”. Pence has vowed to strive to bring “advocacy for the unborn and support for women with crisis pregnancies” to every state.
Former President Barack Obama has lamented the decision on his Twitter account. “Today, the Supreme Court not only overturned nearly 50-year precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision anyone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues, attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.” The former president has called for mobilization to defend the right. “For more than a month, we knew this day would come, but that doesn’t make it any less terrible,” he added, referring to the leak of the draft sentence in early May.
His wife, Michelle Obama, has also taken to Twitter to show her bewilderment, posting a letter in which she also encourages Americans to support the main sexual and reproductive health organizations. “I am heartbroken. I am heartbroken for the people across this country who have just lost the fundamental right to make informed decisions about their own bodies. It fills me with sadness that we may be forced to learn the painful lessons of a time before [la sentencia] Roe contra Wade, a time when women risked their lives on illegal abortions. A time when the government denied women control over reproduction, forced them to continue pregnancies they did not want and abandoned them when those children were born.
Hillary Clinton, also a Democrat, former Secretary of State and presidential candidate in 2016 against Trump, has written on Twitter: “Most Americans believe that the decision to have a child is one of the most sacred that exists, and that such decisions should be left between patients and their physicians. Today’s Supreme Court opinion will remain in infamy as a step backwards for women’s rights and human rights.” She also encouraged her supporters to mobilize to reverse the high court’s decision.
“This is what happens when extremism takes control… We lose our ability to protect our citizens from armed violence and we women will lose the right to make a decision… about our own bodies,” she told reporters. journalists the governor of New York, the Democrat Kathy Hochul, in reference to the two consecutive sentences of the Supreme, the one published on Thursday that establishes the right to carry weapons in public, and the one this Friday about abortion. “This is a black day (…) but we will not stop fighting,” she wrote later on Twitter.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the representatives of the most progressive faction of the Democratic Party, has also resorted to Twitter to rule on the ruling. “Repealing Roe and banning abortions will not make them go away. It only makes them more dangerous, especially for the poorest and most marginalized women. People will die because of this decision. We will not stop until abortion rights are restored in the United States of America.”
The Republican representative for Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the conservative voices closest to Trump, has gone to the Supreme Court to celebrate the sentence. After being harassed by pro-abortion activists who insulted her as she passed, she smiled and said: “I am very happy. It is a blessing. It’s a miracle”. And then she added: “I think we have to worry about the radical left. They are going to make an insurrection here in the Supreme Court.” Congress is investigating just these days the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, an insurrection precisely by Trump supporters.
The American Catholic Church has celebrated the decision of the Supreme Court. “This is a historic day in our country. For nearly 50 years, the United States has enforced an unjust law that has allowed some to decide whether others can live or die; this policy has resulted in the death of tens of millions of unborn children, generations who were denied the right even to be born (…). We thank God today that the Court has now overturned this decision. We pray that our elected officials now enact laws and policies that promote and protect the most vulnerable among us,” says the statement from the US bishops, signed by Los Angeles Archbishop José H Gomez, president of the Bishops’ Conference, and that of Baltimore, William E. Lori. A year ago, the bishops of the United States threatened to deny the sacrament of communion to Joe Biden, the country’s second Catholic president, for his support of abortion.