Upholding Roe v Wade
Why the right to have an abortion is so important for women everywhere.
In 1973, in a landmark case that ended in a precedent setting decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled to legalize abortion up until the point of fetus viability, which usually occurs around the 24th week of pregnancy.
Now, in 2022, nearly fifty years after that decision was made, women everywhere are about to lose that right.
The issue, for myself, is not about getting an abortion. The issue is the fact that women have to fight for something that has no business being decided in a court of law in the first place.
There is no room in the world that we live in today for morality to be legislated. There’s no room for righteous indignation, and moral superiority.
There is no room for women to be told what they can and cannot do with their bodies. No room for survivors of rape, incest, and domestic violence to be told that their local or federal government has the right to force them to carry and then give birth to the product of such regrettable circumstances.
Long and hard has been the fight that women everywhere have fought just to stand alongside our male counterparts in this world.
This summer, if and when Roe is overturned and Mississippi gets its way, the women’s rights movement will be set back into it’s infancy.
When I was 16, I gave birth to my oldest son, and had my second by the time I was 20.
At that time, I decided the best and most responsible thing to do would be to get my tubes tied.
I went to my doctor, told him of my desire to get sterilized, and what followed was a conversation that I found both patronizing and embarrassing.
Even worse, at the end of the conversation, I was told that if I wanted to get my tubes tied I needed permission from my husband.
When my partner was 31 he decided that he didn’t want kids, and went to a specialist to get a vasectomy. He had no children at that time. He spoke to his doctor, told him he wanted a vasectomy, and three days later he got one.
No lectures on how he was going to regret his decision. No demoralizing conversation about how rash and impudent he was being, and he most certainly didn’t have to go home and get a permission slip filled out by his wife.
The obvious double standard is alarming, as is the misogyny that perpetuates it. Abortion is not the issue, merely a facet of a much larger issue at hand. That issue is, who has the right to decide what we can or can’t do with our own bodies?
Who has the right to impose their own moral doctrine on another person?
Another question that’s not being asked of these right to life advocates is, if we force these women who do not want to, to give birth to these children, what harm is that causing these unwanted children who are being brought into the world?
How many drug addicts who know they will not get clean for their pregnancy will give birth to developmentally delayed babies? Babies born addicted to their mothers drug of choice, facing life long problems when it could have been avoided?
How many babies will be born into situations of domestic abuse, becoming one more victim, subjected to a lifetime of fear , shame, and regret.
How many of these children will be born to mothers who themselves were victimized as children, perpetuating a cycle of abuse instead of breaking that pattern as desired?
And how many women will be reduced to once again endangering their lives by risking them in an attempt to rid themselves of a pregnancy that they don’t plan on carrying to term?
At the end of the day, ending abortion rights only ends safe abortions. If a woman doesn’t want to carry a pregnancy to term badly enough, if she fears the consequences of that more than she fears the potential dangers that go along with alternative means of terminating, she will find a way. Women the world over have had to find a way, and make their way, in order to get what they want since time out of mind; it’s time our voices were heard, and validated. Time some women stopped being the puppet whose strings are being manipulated by a domineering puppeteer.
It’s time for solidarity and support from all our sisters out there. If you don’t personally support abortion, that’s okay. Nobody’s going to force you to have one. The opposite should be just as much of a foregone conclusion to come to.
