Abortion verdict continues to harm women

A 13-year-old girl in the United States became a mother recently because the laws in her home state of Mississippi do not allow abortion. What's worse is that she got pregnant after she was raped. She did try to seek abortion in another state where abortion is legal but the nine-hour drive to that state was not something her poor family could afford.

This is just one of the shocking cases reported more than a year after the US Supreme Court denied women abortion rights by overturning the Roe vs Wade verdict. Following the reversal, 14 states banned abortion with immediate effect, making it a terrible ordeal for raped women who get pregnant.

The US government is good at blaming other countries for "human rights violations" even though what it often targets is their legal action for maintaining social order or for defending their sovereignty. However, it turns a blind eye to human rights violations within its own borders, where its own powerful agencies commit such violations undeterred by protests from its own citizens.

A woman's right to her own body and health is a fundamental right that should be included in all constitutions, so as to exclude the possibility of any party violating it.

Some in the US hold views against the right to abortion, a social consensus on the basis of which the states passed laws banning it. However, holding an opinion is one thing and imposing it on others is against basic values in the modern world.

It's absurd for legislators to deprive women of the right to abortion only because they are against it, which is why the Roe vs Wade ruling of 1973, which made the abortion right constitutional, was seen as a watershed moment in US history.

Now, more than a year after the verdict was overturned, women are bearing the brunt. Maybe it's time the US government made a course correction to prevent more women from suffering.