What became a national battle over the right to an abortion was first fought in Hawaii, ending three years before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it in the landmark Roe v. Wade case. In 1970, lawmakers legalized abortion in this state, the first in the nation to do so.
Access to abortion is unlikely to face a serious threat here in the near future — lawmakers expanded access as recently as this year, with a new law authorizing advanced-practice registered nurses as abortion providers.
However, it is all but certain to become a live issue again, regardless, with the well-being of women and children in the balance.
On Wednesday, oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization were heard before the high court. Advocates on either side of the debate hung on every word of the justices’ comments about the case, which challenges a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
That’s about nine weeks sooner than what Roe provides: legal abortion up until the point of “viability,” when a fetus can survive outside the womb.
The exact outcome, when the court is expected to rule in June, is anything but clear. The court’s majority could find a legal basis to narrowly let the Mississippi law stand without addressing Roe, or it could strike down that 47-year precedent altogether. Theoretically, it could uphold Roe and find that state’s law unconstitutional.
Few informed observers of the court put stock in that latter option. Most have interpreted the questioning by some of the 6-3 conservative majority to signal a willingness to leave the legal status of abortion up to state legislatures.
Expect the long-dormant debate to heat up by several degrees here. Even with the heavily liberal lean of the Hawaii Legislature, a ruling that changes the status quo will embolden abortion-rights opponents to pursue abortion restrictions.
Defenders of Roe surely will contest any such initiative — and they should. The best outcome for Hawaii’s women would be to retain the principles of autonomy over such a private and complex health decision. Roe has been the guiding standard for almost half a century and it should remain so.
But Hawaii should be prepared to deal with the possibility of a post-Roe legal landscape. For starters, it will mean that a candidate’s position on abortion should move into the spotlight in political discourse and campaigns.
Even more crucially, state leaders should prepare for any contingency, however long the odds against a major shift. If abortion were to become more difficult to get — especially for women and girls who lack the financial resources to overcome the barriers — there should be more attention paid to the social safety net that protects families and family planning.
In short: Are contraception options made sufficiently available to all? Avoiding an unwanted pregnancy is far preferable to confronting the wrenching decision to end it. The Affordable Care Act has helped tremendously with birth-control access, but rechecking community needs would be wise.
And what systems are in place to assist a financially struggling mother if she has a child, by choice or otherwise? The abortion rate has been on a declining trajectory, as has the overall birth rate, for years, according to national reports.
But there are still children, unwanted, who fall between the cracks. Recent horror stories about foster children have driven that point home. “Pro-life” means caring after the birth as well.
For years abortion has been described as a procedure that should be “safe, legal and rare.” For now, Hawaii can only hope that it will remain so — for all Americans.
