The Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade famously recognize the constitutional right for a woman to make her own medical decisions. These decisions include whether or not to obtain an abortion. Many people believe that once the Supreme Court has made a ruling on it, it’s a done deal. So why do we still need to keep fighting unfair abortion laws in many states?
Ohio passed a bill on December 6, 2016 that would ban abortion after six weeks, which is when the fetal heartbeat starts. They cutely named the bill the “Heartbeat Bill” to make it sound like it wasn’t a complete attack on women’s right to their healthcare decisions.
Here’s the problem with the bill: most women don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks. This is because many women don’t suspect being pregnant until they miss a period, which could be a month after conception. So if you ban abortion after six weeks, you pretty much take the decision away from women about what they want to do with their bodies.
Men have been controlling what women can do since the dawn of time. It may look like women have equal rights now, in all reality, we don’t. Women pay insane prices for tampons and pads, get paid less, are shamed if we do have sex, if we don’t have sex, are shamed if we don’t want to be in a typical woman’s field of work (nursing, teaching, etc.). Women have a 1 in 4 chance of being raped in their lifetime, most likely in college, which hinders educational experiences. And when a woman is raped, many people mourn the man’s future more than hers.
If we take away a woman's right to make her own medical decisions, we are taking away her self-sufficiency. And the biggest problem with the fight against abortion access? The main opponents of it are men.
If the country wants abortion rates to fall, the way to do it is not by limiting access. It's through education and access to birth control and other contraceptives. Limiting abortion access tends to target low income women of color, especially in the fight to defund Planned Parenthood. So let's, as a country, just allow women to do what they want with their bodies, and get over it.
