After Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito released a statement defending abortion, Whoopi Goldberg was outraged. Now that Mississippi’s case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, is seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade, people all around the country are talking about how important the abortion debate is to them and their families. In response to the complaint that men should not be allowed to make health-related decisions for women, Alito, who is male, said that men deserve to decide the fate of pregnant women. This was met with opposition from Goldberg and others, including feminists concerned about abortion rights, who argued that birth control should be reserved for those who are capable of bringing a child into existence.
During oral argument Justice Alito said, “The fetus has an interest in having a life. And that doesn’t change, does it, from the point before viability to the point after viability? There are those who say that the rights of personhood should be considered to have taken hold at a point when the fetus acquires certain independent characteristics. But viability is dependent on medical technology and medical practice. It has changed. It may continue to change.”
Goldberg, who appeared on The View, expressed her disappointment at Alito and other men who want to limit women’s health care by repealing Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortions. Men, according to Goldberg, have no concept of a fetus’s desires or the difficulties of pregnancy that women face.
“Do any of you men have any eggs or the possibility of carrying a fetus? How dare you talk about what a fetus wants? You have no idea,” she stated.
It is not a man’s role to decide when a fetus can or cannot survive outside of a woman’s womb, according to Goldberg.
“I’m fine if you disagree with abortion. I have no problem with that. My problem comes when you tell me what I need to do with my doctor and my family. How dare you. How dare you!” Goldberg said.
Goldberg was also supported by several other women on the show. The co-hosts stated that they thought the conservative justices were striking out during oral arguments.
“What he said, you know, that amount of weeks is arbitrary, it’s not,” said Sarah Haines, responding to Justice John Roberts’ statement that 15 weeks isn’t sufficient time for a woman to make the choice to terminate her pregnancy or not, “To me, this is the difference and why viability matters. You’re choosing between two lives. There’s a mother and a fetus. When the baby – or when the fetus is able to live outside of the mother when it’s viable, that becomes the equal ground. To me, the mother should be put first until that baby can survive outside.”
Mississippi’s stringent abortion regulation, which was passed in 2018 as a direct contradiction to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, is now being challenged in court. The Supreme Court will soon determine whether they should uphold the prior verdict from Roe v. Wade or allow Mississippi to continue restricting women’s access to healthcare services.
