The Supreme Court is considering overturning Roe v. Wade, according to an initial draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that was obtained and published by political news site POLITICO.

Nearly 50 years ago, the landmark Roe v. Wade decision granted women the right to abortion and reproductive rights. Overturning this decision will leave it up to states to decide whether or not abortions or other reproductive rights, such as contraceptives and sex education, are to be legal.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exponentially weak and the decision has had damaging consequences,” Alito wrote in the draft opinion.

For a Supreme Court Justice to refer to women who took charge of their bodies as a “damaging consequence” disregards their rights as a whole.

Overturning this law sets America back and will result in significant damage. Taking away women’s rights to have a legal abortion won’t stop abortions from actually happening. It will only stop safe and medically supervised abortions from happening.

Abortions are necessary when women experience pregnancies with complications, such as ectopic pregnancies or missed miscarriages. Restricting abortions will also affect these women because if they don’t receive those medical procedures they could die.

Forcing women to become mothers and have children they do not want will lead to greater consequences, such as mothers going through mental health crises and children dealing with trauma they don’t deserve. Yet, the court has shown us they don’t care about that.

“As heated as the issue has become in recent years, the abortion rate, calculated among women ages 15 to 44, has been falling. Americans are having half as many abortions as 30 years ago. Researchers say a variety of factors — including better contraceptive use and less sex among teenagers — is leading to fewer unintended pregnancies,” according to The New York Times.

Women who have abortions make this difficult decision for various reasons, whether they were raped, abandoned by their partners, not ready for children, not financially prepared or they simply don’t want to have children. All of these reasons are valid as pregnancy and motherhood are difficult journeys and they have the right to decide if they want to go through that or not.

“The regulation of a medical procedure that only one sex can undergo does not trigger heightened constitutional scrutiny,” Alito wrote. The draft opinion also states that the court’s goal is to prevent abortions and that this is not constituted as discriminatory towards women.

Pregnant women go through intense body changes that can threaten their lives, so forcing them to endure that against their will is misogynistic. This statement by Alito is discriminatory towards women as it dismisses their experiences and treats them unfairly. However, it also overlooks that both men and women are responsible for pregnancies and therefore benefit from the choice to abort a pregnancy or not.

The Supreme Court potentially overturning Roe v. Wade will not just stop here. This could lead to more landmark cases being overturned. Some fear the court may come after contraceptives, such as birth control and gay marriage, according to NPR.

This draft opinion is just the latest effort to limit individual freedoms. As we saw recently in Florida, efforts are underway to limit the freedoms for transgender teens. And Texas has already limited abortion rights.

For a country that prides itself in freedom, the United States courts and government has been limiting people’s freedom from making choices about their bodies and being who they want to be.