REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM
IMPORTANT IDEAS & LEGAL CONCEPTS
“Roe isn’t really about the woman’s choice, is it?” Ginsburg said. “It’s about the doctor’s freedom to practice…it wasn’t woman-centered, it was physician-centered.”
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"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Offers Critique of Roe v. Wade During Law School Visit"
May 15, 2015 by Meredith Heagney
University of Chicago Law School News
BODILY AUTONOMY involves the freedom to make your own decisions about your life, such as your sexuality, romantic and intimate relationships, reproduction, and medical care. it argues people should be able to safely express themselves, make informed choices, and consent to what happens to their body without external influence or coercion.
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If such a right were enshrined in the constitution, it would be a negative right. The fact that it is not--nor is it anything the Framers would every have considered--is a key factor in why such protections have been hotly contested and inconsistently supported in court rulings.
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​Autonomy is closely linked with the right to PRIVACY, the constitutional guarantee from the Fourteenth Amendment on which the decision was based. Privacy is also a moral imperative most of us believe in but which is also not articulated in the constitution.
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A group of advocates, including the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have long argued that basing the decision on the equal protection clause would have been more constitutionally sound and more resilient.
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POSITIVE & NEGATIVE RIGHTS- A “negative right” restrains other persons or governments by limiting their actions toward or against the right holder. In other words, it enables the right holder to be left alone in certain areas. For example, the right to be secure in one’s home requires that others refrain from trespassing or entering without permission. positive rights essentially provide the right holder with a claim against another person or the state for some good, service, or treatment.​
The difference between negative vs positive rights is that one requires action while the other requires inaction. Negative rights are the requirements of someone else not to interfere in your ability to obtain something. Positive rights are a requirement of someone else to provide you with something. You may hear negative rights referred to as “liberties,” and that’s because they are basic human and civil rights stating that no one can interfere with our right to obtain something through trade or bartering. Positive rights are often called “entitlements” because they are things that someone must provide to us, whether we’ve earned them or not. We don’t have to do anything to obtain positive rights; they’re granted to us.
The Many Lives of Roe v Wade
The Little Known History Behind the Famous Ruling
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(click image below to listen to podcast episodes)
Heidi Schreck wrote What the Constitution Means to Me in 2017 when Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, providing women with nationally-based freedom to make reproductive choices, including the right to an abortion. Several states long wished to have this precedent overturned, and in 2021 the case Dobson v. Jackson Women's Health finally made it to the Supreme Court. The decision handed down in that case overturned Roe, allowing states to set their own laws regarding a woman's right to choose.
The Center for Reproductive Rights maintains a global database on reproductive freedom around the world, including state-by-state tracking of laws and protections in the United States. Click the map image below to visit their website and the most up to date information. You can also click on the report image for a detailed understanding of state-by-state legislative efforts as of 2023.
