WOMEN often describe giving birth as “a scene from a horror movie.” Accounts of mistreatment during childbirth in the United States recall harrowing stories of doctors shoving their hands up the uterus of the mother, leaving her bruised, bloodied, and with severe post-traumatic stress disorder that follows her long after the birth. The choice to have a baby can often be a fatal one, always necessitating exposure to a certain amount of danger.
In the United States, a conservative movement to recognise the fundamental right to life of foetuses, and their corresponding right to not be aborted, has evolved over decades. Conservative proponents have put forth an assertive, moral view - the State cannot perpetuate the killing of babies. The Supreme Court of the United States, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. (2022), has resonated with this view - allowing states to prohibit abortion in all circumstances if there is a “compelling interest” in the potentiality of the foetus’s life. In Dobb’s, the Court stated that a woman’s right to privacy to make medical decisions about her body did not always outweigh a foetus’s right to life, but failed to consider how a pregnancy also infringes on a woman’s right to life. There are no other laws in the United States, besides abortion bans, that require a person to risk their life or suffer bodily injury for another.
