In a landmark ruling, the American supreme court has overturned the 50-year-old Roe vs Wade judgement that made abortions a fundamental right across the United States. This has passed the baton to American states to decide the legality of abortions – many of them already have laws against the procedure in place.
The ruling triggered outrage and protests across America, with abortion being a divisive issue in an increasingly polarised society. “Pro-life” or anti-abortion narratives are seen as part of the right-wing or conservative plank. Meanwhile, the United Nations has condemned the order, calling it a “huge blow to women’s human rights”.
As clinics stopped offering the procedure in states where it now stood banned, liberal media outlets warned of a “dark time” for American society while conservative outlets said the verdict was a “stain erased”. Newslaundry took a look at what some of the media organisations had to say.
New York Times
The New York edition carried a banner headline, “Roe overturned”, on its front page. The strap read: “A 6-to-3 Ruling Ends 50 Years Of Federal Abortion Rights.” It noted that the decision will “transform American life, reshape the nation’s politics and lead to all but total bans on the procedure in about half of the states”. It also carried pictures of protests against the verdict.
A “news analysis” at the bottom was headlined: “A Conservative Supermajority May Be Just Getting Started”. It wondered if this is just the “beginning of a sharp rightward shift on issues that directly touch intimate personal choices”. “The lack of a clear and consistent answer among the supermajority of conservative, Republican-appointed justices who control the Supreme Court prompted fear on the left…that the abortion decision could be just the beginning of a sharp rightward shift on issues that directly touch intimate personal choices.”
Washington Post
On the front page of the Washington DC edition, the newspaper’s editorial position was headlined: “A right is rolled back, and now, an angry nation is further divided”. “The court’s newly entrenched conservative bloc has set the country on a course toward legal and political warfare destined to last for years.”
The page was replete with reports related to the decision – one of them called it a “stunning reversal that could alter the nation’s political landscape”. At the bottom was a map indicating the states that were likely to ban the procedure.
New Yorker
Under its “Daily Comments” section, the magazine carried a piece headlined: “When the Supreme Court Takes Away a Long-Held Constitutional Right”.“It is hard to imagine something more like an exercise of raw judicial power than the Court’s removal of the right to abortion, which is precisely what these Justices were put on the Court to achieve.”
Wall Street Journal
“The conservative legal push to overturn Roe v. Wade was 50 years in the making,” read the headline to a piece on the website that looked at the role of justice Samuel Alito – who is seen as a conservative judge and was part of the bench that delivered the verdict on Friday. According to the paper, the judge was promoted by the Reagan era attorney Edwin Meese III.
“Because the Constitution doesn’t expressly grant women a right to end a pregnancy, many conservatives, like Mr. Meese, have said the court erred by construing a right to privacy that allows for abortion at least in the earlier stages of gestation,” it read. “That originalist legal view overlapped with the convictions of a broader set of people who opposed abortion on what they considered moral grounds as the taking of a life.”
LA Times
An editorial on Friday urged readers to “feel outraged, feel betrayed – then fight to get it back”. “It’s a dark time in America as this once-revered institution has taken the rare and awful path of depriving people of their rights.”
It went on to say that the court’s decision had pushed the nation back 50 years. “This is not a simple matter of returning a controversial issue to the states to decide…The Supreme Court is depriving people of the right to control their own bodies and allowing state politics to determine the existence of a fundamental liberty.”
Referring to the court’s decision to overturn the New York handgun law just a day before, the editorial stated, “Everyone, not just those who can get pregnant, should be outraged that the court would do more to ensure that people can carry a concealed gun in public than defend the right of Americans to make personal reproductive decisions.”
National Review
The conservative magazine, launched in 1955, in an editorial called the Roe verdict a “monstrous injustice”. Headlined “A Stain Erased”, the piece termed the decision a “mighty step forward for the rule of law, self-government, and justice”. “What the Court has done is give pro-lifers the chance to make their case and prevail in democratic fora. Our fundamental law will no longer effectively treat unborn children as categorically excluded from the most basic protection that law can provide,” it wrote, celebrating the decision.
Fox News
On his show, Tucker Carlson, the American right’s blue-eyed boy in the media sector, called the Roe vs Wade judgement “the single most shoddiest, most destructive Supreme Court decision in the American history”.
Carlson discussed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tweet on the court’s decision. In his tweet, Trudeau had said that “no government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body”. Carlson mocked. “Suddenly women are the only ones who get pregnant, you’ll notice.”
The website of the conservative channel published an opinion piece – by Republican senator Josh Hawley’s wife Erin Hawley – headlined: “Why Supreme Court abortion decision empowers women”. “This case finally reverses Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision in which seven male justices put forth a dim view of motherhood, saying it ‘forced’ on women ‘a distressful life and future.’ All mothers know that’s a demeaning and untrue picture.”
It went on with pro-lifer cliche. “We know that life begins at conception. And at just fifteen weeks, when Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act applies, a baby can move and stretch, hiccup, and quite likely feel pain…the Lord gives different callings to women – each of them glorifying to him. In my case, a calling first and foremost to my family.”
Breitbart
Known as “the Huffington Post of the right”, the alt-right portal that was once run by Donald Trump publicist Steve Bannon had headlines on the home page mocking the opposition view. “New Democrat conspiracy theory: Scotus ‘tipped off’ pro-lifers for the cameras!”, read a headline. While pointing to condemnation of the ruling by leaders of European nations, another headline said, “Who asked?”.
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