For the last 49 years, women have been fighting for their rights to legalize abortion, yet in 2022, it's still being debated. Now more than ever, Roe v Wade is protecting the lives of millions of women. However, the call from the various states threatening to overturn it could change people's lives for the worse.   

The state of Texas has always been the most problematic, the tipping point of Roe v Wade in 1973, and now the cause of the ongoing debate this year.

In May of 2021, Texas passed a law called The Heartbeat Act,  preventing abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat is heard, which can usually be around as early as six weeks, where most women don't even know they're pregnant. 

Four months later, on September 1, a restriction law known as SB8, came into effect, passed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, banning most abortions in Texas. A law that shocked America and has divided the country. 

It feels like we've gone through this before, right? America torn in half over women's rights? Well, here is a brief rundown of how it went down in the '70s. In 1969, a young woman from Texas named Norma McCorvey would change women and the United States' lives forever. When McCorvey was pregnant, abortion was only legal in Texas when it came to saving a woman's life. After McCorvey had tried to get an illegal abortion but had gotten caught, she went to Texas attorneys. In 1970, McCorvey's attorneys filed a lawsuit for her and the thousands of other women trying to get an abortion, and she became known as Jane Roe.  In June of 1970, the Texas district court said that the state's choice not to allow abortions was illegal since it was against constitutional privacy rights. After many protests and fighting, Roe v Wade was first introduced to the Supreme Court on October 11, 1972. Finally, on January 22, 1972, a decision was made where they had sided with Roe, leading to the destruction of the Texas abortion laws based on the Ninth Amendment's right to privacy. Seven out of the nine justices sided with Roe, while two were opposed. 

Fast forward to 2021, not all governmental power agrees. Eight days after Abbott passed the SB8 bill, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit "to prevent the State of Texas from enforcing Senate Bill 8…The complaint seeks a declaratory judgment that SB8 is invalid under the Supremacy Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment." Not only the Department of Justice but President Biden also had something to say on the matter, "My administration is deeply committed to the constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade nearly five decades ago and will protect and defend that right." But, even though the President and the Department of Justice are against it, the Supreme Court is another story.

Weeks after, the Supreme Court was still divided, and by September and December, the Supreme Court still left Texas's new law in place. On December 10, "it allowed a challenge to the law to proceed, ruling that abortion providers may sue some state officials in federal court. The law remains in effect." A few Justices, including Sotomayor, dissented on the issue at hand. She wrote, "The court's order is stunning…Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand." Marc Hearon, senior council for the Center of Reproductive Rights  claimed that it was disturbing how the majority of Justices did nothing to stop how the law is implemented, and that was, "One of the most troubling aspects of the court's decision." 

A study done by the University of Austin, Texas, reported that legal abortions after SB8 was passed dropped by 50 percent. This is a dramatic difference compared to Spring of 2020. Then, the government banned abortion for a month, not allowing any procedures to occur if the woman's life wasn't harmed. A fact that sounds very familiar to what was going on in Texas before Roe v Wade. Dr.Gilbert, a physician and medical director at Southwestern Women's Surgery Center in Dallas, claims the new law is heartbreaking. The earliest she's "detected cardiac activity since the law was enacted was at five weeks and four days" The law is destroying women's hopes everywhere. Even though America is divided on if Roe v Wade should be overturned, a recent poll made by CNN, has the majority claiming they don't want it to be. 30% claim that they wish Roe v Wade to be completely overturned, while 69% disagree. At least six in ten Americans, with around 68% of women knowing at least one person needed to get an abortion. 

States all over the world erupted in protest, including our very own. New Yorkers took the streets to protest against SB8 because New York had a history of abortion laws. 

Going back to the 70's, there were large protests and marches organized around New York City, since at the time, it had one of the largest populations. The New York Senate had recently passed a law decriminalizing abortion. The law was made so a doctor had to have a women's consent before giving her an abortion and allowed a woman with a guide from a doctor to "perform an "abortional act" on herself within the first 24-weeks of pregnancy or to preserve her life." There were many marches organized including a large one on April 16, 1972. Around ten thousand people gathered in New York City's Central Park to protest against New York's abortion law. 

After SB8 was passed, thousands of New Yorkers took the streets to protest. New York has one of the most "robust protections around abortion rights in the nation. Gov. Kathy Hochul said it is all the more reason New Yorkers must fight for the women in Texas." Protestors marched all the way from Foley Square to Washington Square Park, chanting all the way. Three years ago, in 2019, the Reproductive Health Act was passed, allowing all women to have an abortion, nevertheless what happens on a federal level. The protestors claim that "an attack on one woman's rights is an attack on us all." 

Today, the Supreme Court hasn't done anything to get rid of the SB8 bill, and they are all still divided. Hopefully, action will take place soon to eliminate this horrible, decriminalizing horrendous law that doesn't allow women their full reproductive rights in 2022.