On January 22, 1973, the Supreme court case Roe v. Wade “struck down a Texas statute banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States,” according to HISTORY.com. The court ruled that the 14th amendment protected this right.
The ruling of Roe v. Wade determined that the 14th amendment protects personal liberty, including the right to privacy from government action. Verywellhealth.com explains that this privacy protects “the right to marry someone of a different race, to access contraception… and to marry someone of the same sex.”
50 years after this ruling, a US Supreme Court draft was leaked in May 2022, revealing that it would overturn Roe v. Wade. The draft’s leak instantly took over the media.
While the overturning of this case will leave the legality of abortion up to each state, it will also affect other matters, as President Joe Biden discloses. Biden explained, “It’s not just the brutality of taking away a woman’s right to her body … but it also, if you read the opinion … basically says there’s no such thing as the right to privacy. If that holds … mark my words: They are going to go after the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage.”
In 1965, the court case Griswold v. Connecticut the court made a ruling based on “zones of privacy,” for the first time. This case ruled that married couples have the right to privacy against restrictions on birth control. Later, in 1972, this right was extended to unmarried couples in the case Eisenstadt v. Baird.
Also in relation to these cases, the court ruled that it is unconstitutional to “ban the sale of contraceptives to people younger than 16 years and to limit access to non-prescription birth control,” verywellhealth.com noted.
An interview was conducted by verywellhealth.com with Mara Gandal-Powers on these possible effects. Gandal-Powers, the director of birth control access and senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. She explained that “Undoing Roe could open the door for the Supreme Court to overturn these key decisions that allow Americans to access contraceptives. But stripping such rights through the courts would take some time.”
Not only is the Supreme Court’s decision of overturning Roe v. Wade anxiously awaited, but the numerous effects it could have also remain unknown.
