Soccer player Megan Rapinoe is leading 500 female athletes in pressuring the Supreme Court to protect abortion rights.
ESPN reported that hundreds of female athletes called on the Supreme Court to protect abortion rights in a Mississippi case to potentially ban the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The athletes claimed that abortion has helped women’s sports to grow.
And, they alleged they fear future female athletes will suffer without the freedom to abort their unborn babies.
Find out more about the case below.
Rapinoe Leads The Charge
A friend-of-the-court brief to the justices was signed by 500 women, including 26 Olympians, 73 professional athletes, and various athlete associations. Other big names that signed the brief include basketball stars Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird, who happens to be Rapinoe’s fiancé.
“I am honored to stand with the hundreds of athletes who have signed onto this Supreme Court brief to help champion not only our constitutional rights, but also those of future generations of athletes,” Rapinoe said in a statement obtained by USA Today.
A group of 500 athletes including Megan Rapinoe, Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird on Monday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to protect abortion rights in a case involving Mississippi’s bid to ban the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. https://t.co/Nt4ufp545v
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) September 21, 2021
Related: U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Slams Federation’s Equal Pay Offer As A ‘PR Stunt’
“As women athletes and people in sports, we must have the power to make important decisions about our own bodies and exert control over our reproductive lives,” she continued. “Physically, we push ourselves to the absolute limit, so to have forces within this country trying to deny us control over our own bodies is infuriating and un-American and will be met with fierce resistance.”
The brief states, “Professional athletes use their bodies for their livelihoods, including to access lucrative sponsorships and advertising opportunities. The physical tolls of forced pregnancy and childbirth would undermine athletes’ ability to actualize their full human potential.”
Jason Whitlock Calls Out Athletes
Sports Journalist Jason Whitlock calls U.S. Soccer Star Megan Rapinoe and other athletes who sent the Supreme Court a letter about abortion in this video.
He asks, “Do you know how f***ing stupid you have to be to reduce the issue of abortion to the growth of women’s sports?”
Olympic Athlete Admits To Having An Abortion
In one of the first-person statements submitted in the brief, former Team USA swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Crissy Perham admitted that she had an abortion in college after becoming pregnant accidentally despite being on birth control.
She said that she won a national title the summer after her abortion, and from there, qualified for the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona and won three Olympic medals, including two golds.
“My life would be drastically different if I had been pregnant and forced to sit that (national championship) race out, because that race changed the course of my life,” Perham wrote. “I made the choice that was right for me and my future, and I stand by my decision. That choice ultimately led me to being an Olympian, a college graduate, and a proud mother today.”
Related: Creator Of ‘The Wire’ Refuses To Film HBO Show In Texas Due To Abortion Law
Stakes Of This Case ‘Couldn’t Be Higher’
Joanna Wright, the lawyer representing the female athletes, claimed that the stakes for this case “couldn’t be higher.”
“For many women, sports and their athletic prowess is the ticket to a college education – and, for the elite athletes, access to building livelihood, whether that is through athletic sponsorships or advertising opportunities,” Wright argued.
“I think athletes in particular, and the 500 plus amici who have signed on, understand the huge importance of having decisional autonomy over their own body,” she added. “They use it as a tool of their own craft.”
There are those who do not agree with her.
Megan Rapinoe just told the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade and unlimited abortions.
That's a great reason for SCOTUS to overturn it.
— LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) September 21, 2021
None of this changes the fact that in the eyes of millions of Americans, and in the eyes of science, abortion IS murder. Plain and simple.
Rapinoe and her fellow “woke” friends can ignore this all that they want to, but given that the Supreme Court currently has a 6-3 majority, their abortion plea will likely and hopefully fall on deaf ears.