WHEN the US Supreme Court overturned a landmark case guaranteeing women’s reproductive rights, recently, it set aflame an issue that has been smouldering for decades, and which flares up from time to time.

Pro and anti-abortion activists took to the streets with placards either supporting or attacking the fact that after more than 40 years, Roe v Wade, a ruling that recognised women’s constitutional rights to an abortion, has been struck down by the highest court in the land.

The decision has brought the conservative justices under scrutiny, and is causing mounting confusion among legislators in many states, now embroiled in heated debates over abortion rights.

With 26 states likely to ban abortion, a Reuters article states, “Women with unwanted pregnancies in large swathes of America now face the choice of travelling to another State, where the procedure remains legal and available, buying abortion pills Online, or having a potentially dangerous illegal abortion.”

And Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who declared that, “…the Constitution neither outlaws abortion nor legalises it”, announced that the ruling does not allow States to prevent residents from travelling to another State for an abortion, nor punish people retroactively for prior abortions.

However, Roe v Wade, according to the article, “recognised that the right to personal privacy under the Constitution protects a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy”.

Herein lies the essential issue: Whether a woman should have the right to decide to end a pregnancy, within what timeframe, and for what reasons. Further, the competency of men to rule on a matter so personal to women — given that they neither conceive nor reproduce, and cannot possibly fathom the ramifications of an unwanted pregnancy — is also being challenged, as is the question of whether a court should have the authority to legislate morality.

While the differing factions get into heated arguments, and even violent exchanges over these issues, it would seem only morally fair that a woman who becomes pregnant through incest or rape should automatically qualify for an abortion, and the timeframe should be a medical decision, based on the safety of the procedure.

Now that Roe V Wade has been overturned, this will not be the case in those States where abortion is now illegal, or only permitted prior to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Said Dr. Herminia Palacio, President and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, “The Supreme Court has taken the radical step of overturning Roe v Wade outright, thus unleashing uncertainty and harm onto people asking for nothing more than to exercise their fundamental right to bodily autonomy… Roe enabled tens of millions of people in the United States to decide their own future, and protect their well-being.”

She goes on to assert that decades of research show that abortion bans and restrictions have neither reduced unintended pregnancy, nor the demand for abortions.

Indeed, these restrictions have been shown to cause significant difficulties in obtaining proper care, and lead to the stress of forced pregnancy and all its worrisome repercussions.

In Guyana, abortion has been legal with the passing of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. This permits abortion for any reason during the first eight weeks of pregnancy, if performed by a licenced medical practitioner, and may be allowed at a later stage, if the health of the mother or foetus is endangered.

Indeed, our Abortion Act is both wide-ranging and liberal, allowing for later abortions in cases of rape, incest and other trauma, and the procedure is protected by strict doctor-patient confidentiality.

However, in the United States, where 62 per cent of Americans disapprove of the recent Supreme Court ruling, it still stands, with the debate now raging on at State level, and the US President weighing in and calling the decision “a tragic error”, and those supporting it “wrong, extreme and out of touch”.

And the Guttmacher Institute CEO launched the call for those who seek to defend policies supporting bodily autonomy to “…protect abortion rights and access in as many States as possible, and achieve federal legislation to ensure that anyone, anywhere who needs an abortion can get one freely, and with dignity”.