The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that fetuses can be referred to as “unborn human beings” in pamphlets for voters to decide about the constitutional right to abortion. The decision is being seen as a victory for Republican lawmakers who had advocated for the terminology. Activists fighting for abortion rights disagreed with the decision and said they were “deeply disappointed” by it.
according to BBCPro-choice activists criticised the decision, saying the phrase was “discriminatory”, but the state’s top court said the word did not break rules of impartiality. The US has been embroiled in a fierce debate over reproductive freedom since the US Supreme Court struck down a nationwide right to abortion two years ago.
The debate over abortion in the United States has been highly controversial for many years. Let’s briefly examine the history of regulations, debates, and public views surrounding abortion in the United States.
Early America: According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, until the mid-19th century, America’s attitude toward abortion was much the same as it has often been throughout history: it was a quiet reality, legal until the “quickening” (when fetal movement could be felt by the mother). In the eyes of the law, the fetus was not “a separate, distinct entity” by then, but rather an extension of the mother.
19th century: America’s first anti-abortion movement was not primarily motivated by moral or religious concerns as it is today. Instead, the first major enemies of abortion in America were physicians on a mission to regulate medicine. Opposition from the medical profession grew, and by the late 1800s, most states had laws criminalizing all or most abortions.
1973: The landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion across the country, giving a woman the right to choose to terminate her pregnancy. However, there has been opposition to the decision, especially from conservative and religious groups who view abortion as the destruction of an innocent life.
1990: according to ABC News, President Bill Clinton signed the Freedom of Access to Clinics Act on May 26, 1994. The act makes it a federal crime to physically obstruct the entrance to a clinic or to use force, threat of force, or physical obstruction, such as picketing, to obstruct, injure, or intimidate clinic personnel or women seeking abortion or other reproductive health services.
2022: In May 2022, a leaked draft opinion by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito indicated that the Court would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which guaranteed federal constitutional protection of abortion rights. On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving abortion decisions in the hands of the states and no longer a constitutional right.
2024: On August 14, Arizona judges allowed officials to call fetuses “unborn human beings” in public information flyers ahead of a statewide vote on abortion in November.
