Abortion: A Moral and Political Struggle

We need to find a middle ground, especially in education. A woman’s human rights are not a path to promiscuity, nor is limiting them a form of morality.

The recent leak of the imminent and likely reversal of legal precedent that, since 1973, has protected the freedom to have an abortion in the United States has changed the political scene in the United States, and its reverberations have been felt around the world.

The expected decision by the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, which effectively opened the door to abortion and became a banner and a symbol of opposing views about the societal conflict that, like it or not, still sets the pace for modern culture.

The United States is a country where moral and behavioral dilemmas are subject to judicial decisions; where there is a constant struggle to bend institutions to one side or the other of the debate. In this sense, the Supreme Court is dominated by conservative views, thanks to years of political pressure that have translated into six right-wing and three liberal justices.

And it’s against this backdrop that conservatives feel strong enough to defy the backlash and overturn such a significant precedent.

In some ways, people saw abortion rights as a symbol of female liberation and legal equality, but also emblematic of sexual debauchery and literally of murder.

The debate over the past 50 years has stretched to all sorts of extremes and diverse groups of all political stripes. In the United States, the discussion is as much about a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, with its implications with respect to rape and femicide, as it is over the definition of what constitutes a human being and at what point a fetus is considered a person.

Regardless of one’s position, it’s not a debate that appears to have a middle ground, in the U.S. or around the world.

The reality is that we need to find the proverbial middle ground, especially in education. Women’s rights are not an unstoppable road to promiscuity, nor is the limitation or prohibition of abortion a recipe for moralizing society.

In the current matter, the news about the alleged draft opinion has stirred up groups that usually mobilize once every four years during the presidential elections. This time, however, the impending decision could affect turnout and in turn the November midterm elections. Or at least this what the Democrats hope, as they appear headed for a defeat of historic proportions.

In fact, President Joe Biden himself called for voters to turn out so they can help insure that the Democrats win a majority in Congress and legislate women’s rights, perhaps once and for all.

But it’s not a fight that will end with the court’s decision or a new law.