On Monday, more than 500 current and former female athletes filed a petition with the US Supreme Court to protect abortion rights. The athletes warned justices about the devastating effect that will be caused by abortion ban on women’s sports. The 514 signatories on Monday’s filing put forward a serious look at the effects of forced pregnancies would have on many female athletes’ careers.
The group of signatories include water polo star Ashleigh Johnson, Layshia Clarendon who is the vice president of WNBPA, soccer star player Megan Rapinoe. The letter was signed by 26 Olympians, 73 professional athletes and 276 intercollegiate athletes. In 2021 Tokyo Olympics, female athletes had won 60 percent of Team USA’s medals, filing points out.
The petition says that if women lose their right to make individual and personal choices on their pregnancies, many of the women athletics will be forced to sacrifice their athletic pursuits and aspirations. The women also wrote that pregnancies and childbirths have emotional and financial effects on women beyond the physical consequences. The athletes demanded guarantee for the decisional autonomy and bodily integrity of female athletes in order to ensure equal opportunities and participation of women in sports.
The filing cites the experiences of many female athletes like Kara Groucher and Crissy Perham as examples of sufferings and pressures faced by women athletes during and after their pregnancies. Crissy Perham, Olympic swimmer and Gold medal winner of 1992 Barcelona games, says that while competing in college, she had an abortion that allowed her to pursue swimming and it changed her life.
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