ROME — The once prestigious Lancet medical journal has decried the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade as an attack on the health and autonomy of “every birthing person in the USA.”
In its latest issue, the U.K.-based Lancet lambastes the Court for overturning “almost 50 years of precedent” and makes the remarkable claim that the decision to overturn Roe v Wade was “based on political motivations, rather than medical evidence or legal precedent.”
The article echoes a similar essay published in May by the Lancet’s editorial board titled “Why Roe v. Wade must be defended,” in which the editors bemoaned the Court’s reliance on the U.S. Constitution, dismissing it “an 18th century document ignorant of 21st century realities for women.”
The July 2 piece warns that the decision to overturn Roe will “exacerbate existing racial inequities in maternal and neonatal outcomes,” given that the country is already facing “a Black maternal health crisis.”
“Black women and birthing people are more than twice as likely to experience maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity than white women and birthing people,” it declares.
The Lancet is surely correct in drawing attention to the racial impacts of the Court’s decision, since abortion in the U.S. is a functionally racist institution, with black babies being aborted at more than three times the rate of white babies, very much in line with its eugenic origins.
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This leads one to suppose that new laws outlawing or restricting abortions will save the lives of more black children than white children, a welcome outcome for those who care for the future of the black community.
Abortion is a human right “that must be guaranteed for every individual,” the Lancet boldly proclaims, despite the fact that no major international rights accord has ever recognized abortion as a human right.
“Denying the right to an abortion is antithetical to the doctrines of reproductive justice and human rights,” the essay continues. “Crucially, the conditions under which a person makes these choices matter: an individual should feel safe, supported, and healthy no matter their reproductive decisions.”
Aping the most disingenuous language of the abortion lobby, the Lancet equates the right to life with “forced pregnancy,” as if women in the U.S. routinely engaged in sexual relations at gunpoint.
It goes on to assert that pregnancy itself is a “severe morbidity,” which will come as news to many healthy expectant mothers.
Abortion training for healthcare professionals will also surely suffer from Roe‘s demise, the journal laments, leaving fewer doctors and nurses prepared to perform the procedure.
Abortion is “an important part of obstetrics and gynaecology training,” the journal insists, and restrictive abortion laws in some U.S. states will decrease “already limited training opportunities in abortion care for health professionals.”
Aligning itself fully with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the Lancet insists that it is now “crucial to codify Roe v Wade, abortion access, and the right to privacy into law at the federal level.”
Moreover, “professional organisations in the USA must remind physicians it is not their duty to report patients seeking abortion care or who have had an abortion,” the journal states.
Meanwhile, states that have already codified Roe v. Wade into state law “need to increase abortion care capacity by recruiting more abortion providers and expanding which providers can perform abortions, increase the availability of abortion care for patients coming from out-of-state, and create funding resources for patients with out-of-state Medicaid to pay for the medical procedure, travel, and accommodation,” it declares.
In short, the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has created “a public health emergency,” the Lancet concludes.
The Lancet, founded in 1823 as a medical journal, has transformed itself into a mouthpiece of what it calls “the progressive agenda,” squandering its hard-earned moral and scientific capital on issues such as climate change, immigration, and gay rights and regularly wading audaciously into U.S. politics.
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