"Roe is Here For Good"

From Cecile Richards at Planned Parenthood:

It's been 40 years since Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in this country.

Forty years of protecting every woman's fundamental right to make the most personal medical decisions.

Forty years of ensuring that abortion remains a safe and legal procedure for a woman to consider, if she needs it.

And, it's been 40 years of facing a vocal minority of politicians and others who continue to insist on interfering with a woman's decisions about her own health.

That's why, as the 40th anniversary approaches on Tuesday, those of us who trust women, who value their health and rights, have something to say — Roe is here for good.

Roe is here for the good it has done for our mothers and grandmothers, and every woman who fought for the right to make her own health care decisions. We will not give up what they fought so hard and suffered so long to achieve.

Roe is here for the good it does me and women nationwide. We won't allow a small band of politicians and out-of-touch activists to interfere with a woman's personal health care decisions. We won't allow lawmakers to stand between women and their doctors.

Roe is here for the good of our daughters, who deserve to live in a world that respects their decisions and their rights. They are counting on us to protect their health, to move forward and never turn back. We won't return them to the world that generations of women before them left behind. We will secure their right to make their own decisions today, so they don't have to fight for them tomorrow.

Scott Lemiuex at Lawyers, Guns and Money refutes Five Myths of Roe v. Wade. This is the one that makes me craziest:

Roe is only a rich woman’s right. This critique from the left actually has a plausible basis and a limited amount of truth.   Since the Supreme Court has narrowly upheld the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment and the regulations upheld by Casey disproportionately burden poor women,  the current legal regime protects abortion access for poor women much less than it should.   But even as diluted by Republican-dominated courts, Roe matters to poor women most of all. Affluent women, who will generally either have the connections to obtain gray market abortions or the resources to travel to a jurisdiction where abortion is legal, are likely to have reasonable access to abortion under any plausible legal regime.   To women who lack these advantages, Roe matters substantially, even though both courts and legislatures should be doing more to protect abortion access for poor women.  (Amanda has more on this general point.)