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If Roe v Wade is repealed, Christian right-wing groups in the United States will redouble their efforts to spread abortion restrictions around the world, especially in Africa.
The U.S. Supreme Court could be on the verge of one of the biggest setbacks in abortion rights in a generation. The court is considering whether to overturn the 50-year sentence, which recognized the woman’s constitutional right to abortion before the fetus achieved “viability” at 24 weeks. Many U.S. states are already holding on to so-called “trigger laws” to ban abortion in books. However, the impact of the court ruling, which comes next year, will probably feel the hardest outside the country.
In the United States itself, the 1973 Roe v Wade iconic overthrow would not end with legal abortions; it would be up to the states to decide when abortions can occur. At least 17 states have already passed laws guaranteeing women’s right to abortion, which means access to it would be largely decided by their place of residence. This unbalanced access will undermine women’s health, arguably the impact there will also be less severe. Even before Roe v Wade, official deaths from illegal abortions in the U.S. were declining, from 2,700 to 200 in 1965, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the pro-abortion think tank. If these are just official figures and the actual numbers may be much higher, the trend is still undeniable.
Outside the US, the picture is significantly worse. Ninety-seven percent of dangerous abortions and related deaths occur in Africa, Latin America, and South and West Asia, according to Doctors Without Borders. In Kenya, unsafe abortion remains the leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality, according to a 2002 study showing that 20,000 women each year seek medical attention from abortion-related complications in public sector hospitals alone, with nearly 3,000 dying each year.
What does this have to do with the US Supreme Court ruling, one might ask? The fight over abortion rights in the U.S. is just one of the country’s so-called “cultural wars.” The arena of these wars has gradually expanded to include a large part of the world, as both sides want to impose their own unique ideas all over the world. An OpenDemocracy study last year revealed that right-wing Christian groups in the United States had spent $ 280 million on “dark money” to step up campaigns against abortion and LGBTQ people around the world.
In Africa alone, more than 20 of these groups known for their fight against access to safe abortion, contraception and comprehensive sexuality education have spent at least $ 54 million since 2007, making Africa second only to Europe in second place. abroad. The detrimental effect of these groups was revealed in Uganda’s infamous “Kill the Gays” bill, which punished the death penalty for homosexuality and “promoting homosexuality” and the imposition of prison sentences for knowing and not accusing a homosexual person. According to David Bahati, the Ugandan MP who backed him, the bill was the brainchild of a group of influential social conservatives, including politicians, known as The Fellowship, who directed it to Uganda because it was “too late” to propose such legislation. America. It is noteworthy that Bahatik was hoping for a Republican victory in 2016 to rescue the bill, and even if he got his wish, the bill was unsuitable for the Trump administration as well. (Earlier this year, Uganda passed legislation that further criminalizes same-sex relationships and sex work, arguing that Ugandans were not “seeded” enough to respect gay rights).
The detrimental effects of exporting internal cultural wars to the U.S. can be seen in the so-called “war on drugs” disaster. The United States has been a major proponent of global ban efforts and has sought to use international agreements to impose drug puritanism around the world. The cost of living has been paid by the poor people of the South Global, the number of people who use drugs has no effect. Studies around the world have also shown that criminalizing abortion does not reduce the number of procedures, it does not save the newborn. A survey of 197 countries by the Guttmacher Institute found that abortion occurs at approximately the same rate in legal and very restricted regions. This means that the main effect of the abortion ban is to kill and hurt women and girls, reducing the proportion of safe abortions.
Driven by a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. groups are likely to redouble their efforts to spread abortion restrictions around the world, with dire consequences for women and girls everywhere. In Kenya, where almost half of all pregnancies are unwanted, further tightening of abortion restrictions, despite the ambiguous language of the constitution – which allows abortion to ensure the life and health of the mother and “when permitted by any other written law” – could be catastrophic.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial attitude of Al Jazeera.
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