Abortion could be made illegal in parts of Trump’s America

On the march: the anti-abortion lobby has Trump on its side

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty

By Clare Wilson

Abortion provision in the US will soon come under attack. President-elect Donald Trump has given mixed messages in the past, but in this campaign he vowed to rescind women’s abortion rights at the federal level.

US law enshrining abortion provision across the country was set by a landmark court ruling in 1973 known as Roe versus Wade. Trump has vowed to overturn this, by appointing conservative judges to the nation’s highest court.

There are nine seats in the Supreme Court, with one vacant since February. When the abortion issue came before the court earlier this year, the status quo was upheld five to three.

Assuming that Trump now selects a justice who is anti-abortion, that would still only take the score to five-four. But two of the liberal judges are elderly and might stand down in the next four years; any conservative replacements would tip the balance back to an anti-abortion stance. “It all depends on whether the oldest justices can hang on until the next election,” says James Trussell at Princeton University.

If Roe versus Wade is overturned, individual states would decide the law. Several conservative ones such as Louisiana and Kentucky have long tried to chip away at abortion availability, so they might enact extreme restrictions or bans.

More unwanted pregnancies

Compounding the problem is that the the number of unwanted pregnancies may rise, because Trump has vowed to repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which has helped poor people get health insurance that covers contraception. In which case, says Trussell, “we will have lots more abortions if contraception isn’t free”.

What will happen then when women have unwanted pregnancies? It won’t quite be back to the days of widespread back-street abortions. Those who can will travel to states where abortion is still legal, says Trussell. That already happens in the UK, where women from Northern Ireland cross to England for abortions.

For those up to nine weeks pregnant, there is also the option of “mail-order abortions” – where the abortion pill is ordered online and sent through the post. This is a safe and growing practice in other countries where abortion is illegal; although a few per cent of women need to go to hospital to complete the process, they can claim they are having a miscarriage and doctors are none the wiser.

But getting the pills isn’t necessarily straightforward. While there are some reputable internet pharmacies based in India, they aren’t easy to identify on the web.
There are charities, such as Women on Web, which help women seeking an abortion, by giving medical advice and sending pills without charge if necessary. At the moment, though, they don’t send the drugs to the US. Rebecca Gomperts from Women on Web says that’s because their foundation is based in Canada and they fear it may be targeted by US anti-abortionists.

But since Trump’s victory, Women on Web is reconsidering their position. “This is going to really affect abortion,” says Gomperts. “We are now having board meetings to see what we can do to help women in the US. It’s something we would really like to be able to solve without jeopardising all our other work.”