Our right to privacy is now in danger
Like many in this country the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie were heartbroken by the content of the Dobbs decision of the US Supreme Court when it was leaked in May. It completely guts a woman’s right to abortion under 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision.
We knew this was a possibility from the decades long effort by religious zealots to overturn the case and send us back to the time of secret back-alley abortions that led to unnecessary deaths.
To be truthful, abortions will still happen, but the abortions will be less safe. Those who are caught in poverty will be worse off and women becoming pregnant due to a rape or incest will have no other options to terminate their pregnancy.
The decision also hints at future attacks on same sex marriage, sodomy, and contraception. Religious zealots want to stomp all of that out and people like Justice Alito, Thomas, and the other conservatives on the court are more than happy to help.
Religious conservatives believe wearing masks and not being allowed to pray in a church during a pandemic is a severe violation of their religious freedom, yet they don’t think twice in using their religion to justify taking fundamental rights from all of us. With this decision, our right to privacy is in danger.
SHoWLE strongly condemns the Dobbs decision. We will never stop supporting a woman’s right to reproductive choice and everyone’s right to privacy.
We also repeat our intention not to work with ANY group that doesn’t support a woman’s right to make her own health care choices. We also will refuse to work with groups who don’t support a right to privacy.
We know it is a big ask to boycott Ohio, which is poised to end legal abortion, but if a business isn’t able to leave or refuse to do business in states that ban abortion, we at least ask those businesses to strongly express their support for a woman’s right to choose and offer to help employees obtain abortions in states where it will be legal.
Besides contacting your elected representatives and supporting any protests against taking the right to choose from women, we also ask that you donate to local abortion groups who help those with less resources to get the care they need.
The Agnes Reynolds Jackson Fund (focuses on NW Ohio and Toledo)
National Network of Abortion Funds
Updated on 06/24/2022 when the decision was officially handed down
The vote to overturn Roe was 5-4. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined Alito’s opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts did not join the opinion. He agreed with the majority that the Mississippi abortion restriction at issue in the case should be upheld, but in a separate opinion, he argued that the court should not have overturned Roe.
The court’s three liberals, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, filed a joint dissent.
Supreme Court overturns constitutional right to abortion