The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
6 — Wednesday, July 20, 2022

BRANDON COWIT
Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

VANESSA KIEFER
Editor in Chief

From The Daily: Now, more than ever, we need to 
stand up for abortion rights

*Content warning: rape, violence
T

he 
recent 
overturning 
of Roe v. Wade has left 
United 
States 
citizens 
shocked and undoubtedly angry, 
considering 
most 
Americans 
do not support the outlawing of 
abortion. Overturning Roe v. Wade 
means disaster for women across 
the country. As a result of the 6-3 
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health 
Organization ruling, the legality of 
abortions is now determined by each 
individual state, not by the federal 
government, rescinding a nearly 
50-year-old federal legal right. As 
of early July, only a few states have 
directly 
banned 
abortions, 
but 
countless others seem to be pushing 
to restrict access to abortions. This 
abolition of a constitutional right 
puts the health, safety and even lives 
of millions of people with uteruses at 
risk.
Specifically, women of Color 
and low-income women are most 
harmed by this recent Supreme 
Court ruling. Twenty-six states 
are likely to ban abortion, most 
of them in the South — where 
over half of Black Americans live. 
Because Black women are almost 
four times more likely to have the 
procedure done than white women, 
the impact of this ruling on them 
is even more unjust. Indigenous 
and Alaska Native women seeking 
abortions, especially those in rural 
or remote communities, will suffer 
compounded effects from reduced 
abortion access. Compared to white 
women, they are two to three times 
more likely to die in childbirth.
Rearranging breakfast to replace 
traditional dinner, as well as making 
lunch replace traditional breakfast 
and 
dinner 
replace 
traditional 
lunch, would both radically improve 
human health as well as improve 

our 
day-to-day 
routines. 
While 
offering the opportunity for the 
United States to finally have an 
unproblematic cultural tradition, 
rearranging 
the 
meals 
would 
cognitively and digestively benefit 
the American people. Now, those 
stacks of buttermilk pancakes with 
warm syrup and crispy bacon can be 
enjoyed as a delightful evening treat.
Sophia Lehrbaum is an Opinion 
Columnist and can be reached at 
lehrbaum@umich.edu. 
In addition to these racial 
inequities, abortion is and always 
has been a class issue. In states 
where 
abortion 
is 
outlawed, 
poor women will be forced to 
have children — no matter the 
circumstances leading up to their 
pregnancies — due to the financial 
resources traveling to another state 
requires. Those unable to travel 
might engage in unsafe abortions. 
A nationwide abortion ban is 
projected to increase the number of 
pregnancy-related deaths by 21%. 
America has decided to infringe 
on women’s rights, imprinting 
sexism within our legal code. These 
women who are denied abortions 
in their home states are also four 
times more likely to live below the 
federal poverty line, assuming they 
survive their potentially deadly 
pregnancies. When two people 
might be in the same situation 
with an unwanted pregnancy, 
wealth could be the deciding factor 
between life and death. 
Though the idea may seem far-
fetched, this decision could be 
the harbinger of a government 
overtly influenced by Christian 
beliefs. This is the first time a 
constitutional right has been taken 
away by the Supreme Court, and 
Justice Clarence Thomas stated 
in a concurring opinion that 
the Supreme Court should also 
reconsider other legal rights not 
explicitly stated in the Constitution. 
This 
includes 
Griswold 
v. 
Connecticut (the right to buy and 

use contraceptives), Lawrence v. 
Texas (the right to same-sex sexual 
activity) and Obergefell v. Hodges 
(the right to same-sex marriage). 
While 
the 
Dobbs 
v. 
Jackson 
Women’s 
Health 
Organization 
decision and Thomas’s seeming 
indifference to fundamental civil 
rights 
might 
seem 
shockingly 
barbaric, they come as no surprise 
after the last six years of American 
politics. 
By electing Trump into office 
in 2016, America doomed itself. 
Trump explicitly stated in the 2016 
presidential debates that he would 
appoint 
multiple 
conservative 
Supreme Court justices in order to 
overturn Roe v. Wade — and that 
was just the beginning. Throughout 
his presidency, he leaned on pro-
Christian, conservative rhetoric 
to build and sustain his political 
base, creating room within the 
American political sphere for more 
radical, 
conservative, 
religious 
ideologies to affect public policy. 
This rhetoric led to a set of policies 
that includes (but is not limited to) 
the Muslim travel ban, revoking 
rules that allowed transgender kids 
to use their preferred bathroom 
and privileging federal COVID 
aid to religious organizations over 
secular ones. Clearly, and as stated 
in the U.S. Constitution, America 
is prohibited from establishing a 
state-sponsored religion. But, with 
the passage of these archaic anti-
abortion laws, the line between 
Christian churches and the state is 
becoming dangerously blurred.
While the overturning of Roe v. 
Wade has often been referred to as 
a women’s rights issue, the impact 
of this decision will be felt — in 
varying degrees — by transgender 
men, 
nonbinary 
people 
and 
cisgender men as well. This is a 
decision that affects us all, and we 
must respond to it in a way that 
reflects its severity and breadth.

QUIN ZAPOLI
Editorial Page Editor

Stop treating PAs at UHS as 
second-class providers

The dangers of the extreme concentration 
of political power in the Supreme Court

I

n 1787, America’s Founding 
Fathers 
designed 
our 
government 
with 
three 
branches so that no single branch 
could overpower another. The 
Framers found great comfort in this 
structure, as it provided a safety 
blanket 
against 
governmental 
tyranny — something they very 
much feared due to their previous 
lack of representation in the British 
Parliament. In addition to this 
separation of powers, a meticulous 
system of checks and balances was 
put in place to allow the branches 
to “check” one another’s power.
After nearly 250 years, this 
structure 
still 
stands 
today. 
Nonetheless, 
its 
well-thought 
nature fails to be flawless. For 
one, its design was intended 
to only benefit wealthy, white 
men. Furthermore, the judicial 
branch has proven itself to be 
excessively powerful throughout 
history and especially so recently, 

with decisions like the recent 
overturning of Roe v. Wade. 
There are plenty of articles 
and newscasts out there to tell 
you all you need to know about 
the appalling loss of a woman’s or 
any person with an active uterus’s 
right to choose, a right to their 
body and a right to her or their 
privacy. To say this decision is 
devastating is an understatement 
— it is truly setting us back in time 
and progress. I could write an 
entire book-length rant for you, 
but my point today lies elsewhere: 
now that Roe v. Wade has been 
overturned, it can and probably 
will mean additional reversals 
that further marginalize women, 
people of Color, members of the 
LGBTQ+ community and other 
groups of the like. 
The Supreme Court overturned 
Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson 
Women’s 
Health 
Organization, 
with a majority of justices arguing 
that a woman’s right to abortion is 
not guaranteed in the Constitution.

W

hile on a U-M Blue 
Bus 
bound 
for 
North Campus on a 
particularly pleasant day, I decided 
to enjoy the ride free of distraction. 
I put my AirPods away, cracked 
open the window and took in the 
breeze of the Huron River running 
parallel to me. My moment of 
meditation was cut short, however, 
by a group of students on the bus 
who had just been dismissed from 
an organic chemistry lab. After a 
normal discussion about titrations, 
the post-lab discussion write up 
and weekend plans, one of the 
students began recounting an 
experience they had at University 
Health Services that morning.
“I bet she was just pretending to 
know how to use the stethoscope,” 
he said.
“There’s no way a PA should be 
able to run an entire appointment. 
I’m telling you guys — our tuition 
money is being wasted.”
After the student finished his 
tirade against the UHS physician 

assistant who treated him for an 
ear infection a few hours before 
their lab, his fellow classmates 
began to chime in. “I just can’t 
believe we have to settle,” “there 
are no real doctors left in primary 
care” and “let’s boycott UHS,” 
were among the statements made.
The students were quite a 
few rows ahead of me, but their 
disdain traveled throughout the 
whole bus with the shock-factor 
of a code blue alarm. Their blatant 
disregard for and disparaging 
attitude 
toward 
advanced 
practice providers such as nurse 
practitioners (NPs) and physician 
assistants (PAs) that serve a 
critical role at UHS horrified me. 
Those students’ words shed light 
on the crux of a big problem: the 
disintegration of respect for team-
based healthcare.
I, like the students on the bus, 
am a pre-medical student. I would 
hope that all future physicians 
choose a career in healthcare to 
be, at the core, a patient advocate. 
However, advocacy is never a one-
man show.

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THE MICHIGAN DAILY 
SUMMER EDITORIAL BOARD

NAMRATHA NELAPUDI
LSA Junior

ANNA TRUPIANO
Opinion Columnist

