One historian warns: “For half of American women, abortion will be almost or completely banned.”

“For half of American women, abortion will be almost or completely banned.”, explains Friday, June 24 in franceinfo Nicole Bacharan, US political scientist, historian and specialist. The Supreme Court has given freedom to the 50 US states to ban voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) on their territory by burying ru vs. Wade from 1973which until then had guaranteed the right to abortion.

>> Follow the reactions after the US Supreme Court ruling on abortion in our lives

franceinfo: How do you explain this “undo”?

Nicole Basheran: It’s a very conservative attack that’s been in the making for 50 years. Since abortion was legalized in the United States, you have churches and conservative groups working to advocate, finding attorneys to discuss, and so on.

But this shift has already occurred with the presidency of Donald Trump, whose religious interests are known to be self-serving or too superficial.

Nicole Bechran, historian

in franceinfo

But he had the opportunity to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court, three ultra-conservative justices who have made a difference today. Today, Donald Trump and his judges are fulfilling the contract he made with his constituents: to ban abortion in the United States, and in the coming weeks this will be the case in about half of the US states.

What can Joe Biden do to try to reverse this decision? Is there a way to prevent this stop application?

For now, no, really not. The Supreme Court is the supreme law of the country. So the president said “what we can do is get a federal law passed in Congress in Washington that protects the right to abortion,” a federal law that is therefore applicable in all states. The Supreme Court, in its decision today, in all hypocrisy if you ask me, is not saying “we ban abortion” but “we no longer protect it”. So it is up to the states to make their choice and vote on their law. About half of those 50 states will ban it. Thus, one could imagine that a federal law establishing the right to abortion for all American women could override this Supreme Court ruling. But that means a very strong majority in Congress, and especially in the Senate, with at least 60 senators. Not only does Joe Biden not have that majority today, but it seems unlikely that he will get it by November, when we will have a legislative election again. The truth is that for half of American women, abortion will be virtually or completely banned, and women will continue to have abortions in situations where they feel they have no choice. It is as old as world history and women’s history what will happen.

What would these women do now if the state in which they reside bans abortion?

The wealthy, who can take a vacation, those who have few finances, and those who have family will travel to help them. They will travel thousands of miles trying to get an appointment at a clinic in a liberal country. Clinics that, in more liberal states, would be very overburdened. And then the most modest women, who already have many children, and who cannot take a day off, will resort to “methods” that endanger their lives and health. Some will have children they cannot support.

“Actually, it’s a very exciting thing because a legislator or a Supreme Court judge would imagine that it would prevent abortions from occurring, no, it would prevent abortions from occurring in proper sanitary conditions.

Nicole Bechran, historian

in franceinfo

Do you think the American society agrees with this decision of the Supreme Court today?

no. Only 28% of Americans wanted us to reverse the Roe v. Wade ruling that protected the right to abortion. 28%, this does not mean that it should be banned. Which is not the same thing. What has really developed is the more radical part of evangelicals, hard-line Catholics, and part of the Republican Party. Republican presidents like Nixon, who was president when abortion was legalized, and Reagan, George Bush, and Eisenhower, none of them were on this radical religious line. This radical character is rather modern and does not correspond to the general development of society.