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On June 24, 2022, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi addressed the House to criticize the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

This day was also my 17th birthday. Just an hour before I was supposed to take my driver’s test and experience one of the defining freedoms of adulthood, a more personal freedom was taken from me: my right to make decisions about my own body.

Today, almost three years later, women still don’t have the constitutional right to access safe and legal abortions and reproductive healthcare. The fight for gender equality is forced to a stalemate due to the extreme agenda of the super-majority, radically Republican Supreme Court justices appointed by President Donald Trump.

Every day, we as women wait for the current administration to push us further into the past while our president spews misogynistic comments.

Trump’s continued disregard for abortion rights is only the beginning of his complete dismantling of our democracy. Although it’s been almost three years since the overturning of Roe, these rights remain incessantly in jeopardy due to his influence over the Supreme Court.

In 1973, Roe v. Wade was the landmark Supreme Court decision that granted the constitutional right to have an abortion, setting the precedent for all women to have the right to choose what happens to their bodies.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 case that overturned Roe, stripped women of their bodily autonomy almost entirely.

Anti-abortion politicians have been trying to remove the right to an abortion for years, directly contesting the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. This dream became a reality once Trump appointed three new justices during his first presidency: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Swaying the Supreme Court in one foul swoop displays the danger of power in the hands of Trump and the threat this poses to the state of checks and balances.

The Supreme Court is meant to rule solely based on the Constitution. The tone of today’s justice system completely disregards that principle.

The Constitution is ambiguous, leading to several different interpretations. This once gave it the power to expand for the benefit of underrepresented Amercians, but now produces biased, controversial rulings under the current right-leaning court.

This isn’t just present in the Supreme Court but in every other branch of government, creating a faulty justice system.

Without checks and balances, our country faces a complete erosion of democracy.

This isn’t a threat to be taken lightly, especially when the fate of a just America rests in the hands of a man who craves superiority.

Despite former President Joe Biden’s Catholic background, which is typically aligned with pro-life rhetoric, his administration worked hard to protect the fundamental rights of women from the beginning.

Over the past 10 years, he’s shifted his stance to more prominently show support and enact government reform. He’s been endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, signed countless healthcare executive orders and has called on Congress to codify abortion rights.

The current administration can’t say the same about its own president.

Although Trump’s stance on abortion has been inconclusive in the past, his views stayed evasive during his campaign, and for a reason — to manipulate the American people, even though the truth was unfolding right before their eyes.

Time and time again, Trump dismissed questions surrounding abortion, most likely due to his opponent being in strong support of abortion rights. When asked how he voted in Florida’s abortion amendment, Trump told the reporter to “Just stop talking about that.”

But he dropped this neutral act as soon as his vision came to fruition. Trump was victorious when Roe was overturned, returning jurisdiction over abortion to the states. He bragged that he was the “guy” who ended Roe v. Wade, and continues to wear it as a symbol of pride.

He isn’t only a threat to women’s rights, but to women themselves.

Failure to address his disparaging behavior toward women continues to enable his misogynistic influence to the Supreme Court. This will pose a greater threat extending beyond bodily autonomy for years to come.

During the later days of his campaign, Trump pledged to the American people via Truth Social that he’d be great for women and their reproductive rights, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

In his celebrity past, Trump has made several obscene comments objectifying women, boasting about groping and nonconsensually kissing them. Even more terrifyingly, he’s been accused of sexual assault by at least 27 women and has appointed cabinet members facing sexual misconduct allegations.

As the face of our country, this is utterly disgusting and detestable behavior. It isn’t a shock that he’s trying to evade the law, as he was still allowed to run for president after being convicted on 34 counts of felony.

Nancy Northup, the president and executive officer of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said Trump’s administration is the most anti-abortion we’ve ever seen in United States history.

In March of 2024, Trump insinuated his support for a national abortion ban at 15 weeks, which he described as something that everyone agrees on.

Once in office, Trump to no surprise wasted zero time in attacking reproductive freedoms, signing an executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment to eliminate federal funding toward abortion. Even more troubling, the federal website was wiped from the internet the same week Trump was sworn in.

The frightening reality of Trump’s second term is the shameless intention to eradicate reproductive protections, highlighting our dwindling democracy. It’s imperative to emphasize that banning abortion doesn’t mean abortions will end. Only safe abortions will.

The stripping of abortion is only the beginning of women’s rights being taken away. Just because Roe v. Wade happened three years ago doesn’t mean the war on women has ended, and acting as such only threatens our rights further.

The fact that allowing a woman to choose what to do with her own body is even a question shows the deeply rooted sexism in our society. Allowing people to make decisions about their own reproductive health should be the precedent everywhere — at all times.

Layla Poli is a sophomore majoring in public relations. She can be reached at lcpoli@syr.edu.

Published on April 17, 2025 at 1:34 am