NEWS

Roe v. Wade has been overturned. What this means for abortions in Massachusetts.

Sarah Carlon
Cape Cod Times

In Suzanne Brock's eyes, the majority of Americans only get half the truth about abortion.

"A lot of the news that you get when people talk about abortion, particularly people against it, they make it sound like it’s a whimsical kind of a decision that people make," Brock said. 

As someone who has had an abortion, and knows others who have, this narrative couldn't be further from the truth, she said.

"In my experience, the people that I know, and for myself as well, it is a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking experience that women go through," Brock said. "People need to be cognizant of the fact that it’s not an easy choice, and people who are pro-choice are not monsters or people who don’t care about infants or children. We care deeply. It’s not fair that women who had an abortion are presented as heartless, cruel creatures.”

The decision:Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, eliminating constitutional right to abortion

The Supreme Court ruled Friday in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that Americans no longer have a constitutional right to abortion, a watershed decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and erased reproductive rights in place for nearly five decades.

In the wake of the news, Cape Cod activists were planning demonstrations in at least three towns.

The fallout:Supreme Court ruling triggers maze of state abortion laws

In the court's most closely watched and controversial case in years, a majority of the justices held that the right to end a pregnancy was not found in the text of the Constitution nor the nation's history.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for the 6-3 majority. 

Brock, the former president of the League of Women Voters of the Cape Cod Area, was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with the Peace Corps when Roe was passed in 1973, but remembered joining pro-choice protests in the 1980s.

Women's rights were always important to her, but the issue of abortion became even more important after she had one.

The breakdown:How will New England's abortion laws be affected by Roe v. Wade decision?

Travel could be barrier to abortion

With Roe's overturning, Brock worries for women who could be in the same position she was in, especially if they don't have the resources to travel if they live in a state where the end of Roe means the end of all abortions.

'New era' or 'dark day'?:Americans divided as they react to Supreme Court overturning Roe.

Massachusetts is not such a state, since the 2020 ROE Act codifies abortion rights in the Commonwealth. It allows abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and after 24 weeks only in cases of fatal fetal anomaly or when deemed necessary by a doctor. Those seeking an abortion under the age of 16 require parental consent. 

Suzanne Brock of Dennis worries that a lack of resources for some women could make travel to obtain an abortion out of reach.

After the leaked draft:What would an overturn of Roe v. Wade mean in New England?

"Having gone through it myself, I am upset," she said. "I’m thankfully past the age where I have to worry about that anymore, but if I was a younger woman, I’m in the position where I have enough income where I could make the journey if I needed to. But for those people who are not in my circumstances, a law that is on the books that is supposed to apply to everyone equally, just doesn't."

The link between Dobbs and Roe

Roe established the right to an abortion before the fetus is considered "viable," or able to survive outside the womb, and putting fetal viability anywhere after 24 to 28 weeks.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerned 2018 Mississippi law the "Gestational Age Act," which bans abortions over 15 weeks. The bill provides exceptions in cases of medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormality, but without exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

Other parts of the country:Supreme Court signals support for Mississippi 15-week abortion ban with Roe v. Wade in balance

Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, challenged the law in 2018, asserting it conflicted with Roe and a subsequent case in 1992 that upheld Roe, but ruled people can obtain an abortion until viability. Two lower federal courts agreed with that position, but Mississippi appealed to the Supreme Court.

The constitutionality of the court banning states from prohibiting all pre-viability elective abortions was argued in December 2021, putting Roe back in the Supreme Court.

In an unprecedented move, on May 2, Politico published a leaked draft of the court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, also authored by Alito, showing the court’s intention to overturn Roe.

Old issues brought to the forefront 

When Michelle Axelson bought Womencrafts, a feminist bookstore and shop in Provincetown, in 2015 she remembered thinking some of the inventory needed an update.

Where the abortion fight goes from here:Roe overruled but the battle will continue

As the new owner bringing new blood to one of Provincetown's oldest shops, she thought items like bumper stickers about abortion rights or book burnings just didn't reflect the time.

"There were messages and stickers of old topics that we had been fighting for for years that I felt were outdated," Axelson said.

Michelle Axelson, owner of Womencrafts feminist bookstore in Provincetown, bought the store in 2015.

Laurie Veninger, an adjunct professor of English literature at Cape Cod Community College and a member of the grassroots activist organization Indivisible Cape Cod, said she didn't even need to look at the leaked opinion to know that it would spell the end of Roe v. Wade.

“I’ve always considered myself a feminist, and I’ve always believed in the rights of women having autonomy over the most basic right of the freedom to control their own bodies," Veninger said. “My whole life I have benefited from having this belief that women can decide for themselves when and whether to start a family.”

“My whole life I have benefited from having this belief that women can decide for themselves when and whether to start a family,” said Laurie Veninger of North Truro.

She was young when Roe was passed, but remembers a debate far more respectful than the dialogue between pro-lifers and pro-choicers today, a debate to which she isn't hopeful Americans can ever return.

“Like many other people at the time, I had mixed feelings, but I remember logical and respectful debates," Veninger said of the 1973 decision. “There wasn’t this vitriol that you see now. Nowadays the wedge has been put in so far, so deep we can’t have those conversations anymore."

Why now for Roe's overturn?

Axelson sees the latest challenge to Roe, almost five decades after its initial passage, as the last vestiges of a patriarchal and misogynistic society.

"People who have had life easy are the politicians making these decisions, and they’re looking down the scope of the future seeing that they are not the majority," she said. "People who are in fear are reactive."

Women's March:Cape towns mobilize, defend to protect women's reproductive rights

Veninger feels the current challenge facing Roe is the culmination of many decades of effort by an extremist religious section of the Republican party, one that she does not believe represents the majority of the party, or even the country.

Extremist conservatives have been "pushing a wedge" into Roe since the 1980s, according to Veninger, through later rulings that added restrictions such as waiting periods or hospital requirements to Roe's precedent. 

Demonstrators stand along the edge of the Orleans Rotary on May 14 in support of abortion rights as part as a nationwide protest over leaked Supreme Court documents suggesting an overturn of Roe v. Wade, which was officially overturned this week.

Thirty-five states require all abortions, surgical or otherwise, to be performed by a doctor, with 19 requiring the procedure to be done in a hospital at a certain point in the pregnancy, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health policy research institute.

Eighteen states require mandated counseling before an abortion, and 25 require a waiting period, typically of 24 hours, before the abortion.

Massachusetts does not fall into any of those categories, according to the institute.

It is those laws that have been slowly eroding Roe since its passage, in Veninger's eyes.

'I've been fighting this since the 60s':Abortion rights advocates rally in Orleans, Hyannis, Falmouth

"I knew this was coming and I knew it's been coming for 20 years," she said. "As soon as we saw that the Supreme Court was majority-conservative extremists, this is what they’ve been aiming for for many decades."

Brock pointed to the nationwide trend of packing courts of all levels with conservative judges — and former President Donald Trump's appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices during his time in office — as a possible reason behind Roe's defeat. 

“I believe that the Republicans have been very good in forward-planning, in terms of moving the country in a more conservative direction, and this is a way to do it,” she said. “I think this is a conservative movement that is growing, and this is an easy target."

Roe's defeat sets a precedent beyond abortion

For Axelson, abortion is the "bellwether" for where the United States is heading in terms of civil freedoms.

“Abortion tells the story of what’s coming, and what is valued in a country, in a society, where a woman does not have the autonomy and agency and personhood to make decisions for their own lives," she said.

The decision sends a decisive message, Axelson said.

“The message that sends to the world is what this country is prioritizing and what is getting snuck in in front of us is that women’s voices and body autonomy don't matter," she said.

In 2019, at the Airport Rotary off Route 132 in Hyannis, supporters of Roe v. Wade gathered as part of a nationwide protest about recent laws passed in some states to limit abortion rights. Demonstrations are planned for Saturday on Cape Cod.

While Brock remains hopeful that Roe's defeat won't reach further than abortion, both she and Veninger are concerned about the future of birth control access.

"There's no doubt in my mind they’re going to go after birth control next," Veninger said. "Those people (Supreme Court justices) who are using the word originalists for the explanation for their rulings, they’re telling us in no uncertain terms that what they want is a white patriarchal supremacy in our country."

LETTERS:Cape Cod Healthcare could provide abortion services. Why doesn't it?

A mind-boggling kind of momentum could be created, Brock said of the repercussion of Roe's defeat.

"Whether or not it will remains to be seen, but I am very skeptical of the conservative movement at this point in time," she said. "I think they have a real taste for power and they wouldn’t be afraid to try and use it.”

What's next for abortion access in Massachusetts?

Organizations throughout New England have been turning their attention to protecting abortion access, even before Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization made it to the Supreme Court.

Due to legislation like the ROE Act, passed in 2020 despite two overrides by Gov. Charlie Baker, abortion rights and access in Massachusetts are codified at the state level.

Reproductive Equity Now, previously the Massachusetts Organization to Repeal Abortion Laws, has been advocating for abortion access and reproductive rights for more than 50 years in the Bay State.

Roe v. Wade opponents on Cape Cod see beliefs affirmed in draft Alito opinion

They partnered with the ACLU of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood to create the "Beyond Roe Coalition," a three-pronged approach to protecting abortion rights through increased access, abortion provider support, and education and research.

After the leaked draft of the Dobbs decision, the state Senate increased abortion funding originally proposed in the House from $500,000 to $2 million.

The last abortion clinic on the Cape, Women's Health Center in Hyannis, closed in 2008 after a client died during a procedure.

What is an 'abortion desert'?

Despite this increase on a state level for abortion funding, the biggest challenge for Cape Codders is the stark lack of any abortion healthcare nearby.

The last abortion clinic on the Cape, Women's Health Center in Hyannis, closed in 2008 after a client died during a procedure.

The closest clinics offering abortions — the Women's Health Center in Brookline and Four Women Health Services in Attleboro — are still more than an hour's drive from the bridges, making the Cape an "abortion desert."

Advocates:Cape Cod's lack of abortion services dates from 2008, and forces longer travel times

A locale qualifies as an abortion desert when the nearest clinic is more than an hour's drive away, said Taylor St. Germain, communications director for Reproductive Equity Now.

There are still many abortion deserts in the commonwealth, especially in Western Massachusetts and the South Shore, St. Germain said, but one important aspect of increasing abortion access is also increasing education and awareness around abortions.

Reproductive Equity Now created the online resource abortioncarenewengland.org, where users can find abortion providers throughout New England and learn more about the process behind the procedure.

"Abortion care will remain legal in Massachusetts," St. Germain said. "If you have an abortion appointment it is still on, regardless of what happens in the Supreme Court."