A Fox Business Network correspondent said that women concerned that their abortion rights will be stripped by the potential overturning of Roe v Wade should move to states where the practice is allowed.
In the wake of the leak of a draft Supreme Court decision that would overturn the landmark abortion ruling, people across the country have feared the implications of such a ruling, namely that women will lose the right to have legal abortions.
If the ruling is overturned later this year, nearly half of the states in the US will automatically ban most abortions.
Fox Business Network correspondent Jackie DeAngelis said that women concerned that their rights are being stripped away could simply pick up their lives and move to a state that allows abortion.
"States may put more restrictions on [abortion], but people have the right to leave. They can go live somewhere else where it’s more of a free-for-all and they could do whatever they want ... it should be about choices we want to make," she said.
She said that many conservatives live in states with Democratic leadership and have to put up with liberal policies like "tax and spend" or "soft on crime." She said those conservatives have the option to move if they do not want to deal with those policies, and liberals have the same right to leave.
Apart from Ms DeAngelis' insinuation that tax policies are comparable to the deeply personal and potentially life-altering decision of whether or not to have a child, it also does not take into account women and families whose financial or family situations do not allow them the luxury of moving states, nor does it take into account individuals who are licensed in certain areas or own homes for whom moving would come at a steep cost.
Overturning Roe v Wade could open an avenue for Republicans to push for federal legislation enacting a total ban on abortions nationwide. The Washington Post reported that Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion activists have already met to discuss federal legislation under the assumption that the Supreme Court will strike down Roe v Wade.
“By [Republicans] saying out loud that their goal is to push a nationwide abortion ban, it makes it clear that we have to elect more pro-reproductive health champions on the national level and in the states,” Planned Parenthood Action Fund executive director Kelley Robinson told the Post, calling the potential federal proposal “terrifying”.
