(OPINION) Christian author Jen Hatmaker, a mother of five, has voiced her support for Roe v. Wade after a leaked U.S. Supreme Court opinion suggests that the landmark decision that legalized abortion appears set to be overturned.
The overturning of the 1973 Supreme Court judgment will cause “immediate, disproportionate harm,” and “not just emotional harm; physical and legal harm,” Hatmaker wrote on her blog.
Last week, Politico published a leaked draft majority opinion regarding the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which suggested that five of the nine Supreme Court justices voted to uphold a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15-week gestation and they would overturn Roe v. Wade, which usurped states’ laws on abortion and legalized the practice nationwide.
An overturned Roe v. Wade decision would send the issue back to the 50 respective states to each determine their abortion laws. Hatmaker, who made headlines in 2016 for affirming same-sex marriage, claimed that data “unambiguously” proves that “making abortion illegal doesn’t lower abortion rates.”
“It simply makes them more dangerous,” she argued. “And dangerous for whom? 1-in-4 American women have had an abortion, so … dangerous for your daughters, your sisters, your best friends, your colleagues, your neighbors, your church friends, and of course those of you reading with your quiet, private personal history here, as it should be, yourself. It will be disproportionately dangerous for women of color and under-resourced women, as all social ills are.”
Hatmaker further argued that abortion is a choice women make for “endless personal reasons including the health of the mother, the health of the baby, rape, incest, viability, financial instability, a dangerous home environment, lack of help, and of course reasons that are theirs alone … as are their bodies.”
She added, “This is intensely personal and private, and women deserve agency and choice not only with their bodies but over the decision to parent for the rest of their lives. Anti-abortion advocates have every right to their convictions, but those convictions should only apply to their bodies, their families, and their futures.” Hatmaker called the legislative opponents to Roe “political theater.” READ MORE
