January 22, 2016 marked the 43 year anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court ruling that made it possible for women across America to make their own medical decisions, which most popularly regards to the right to choose to abort a baby or not. Despite the ruling, many across the nation continue to argue over whether or not abortion should be deemed as constitutional, a major example of this being republican candidate’s Carly Fiorina; Fiorina recently ambushed a group of young kids who were on a field trip to the Des Moines botanical garden and ushered them into her “Right to Life” forum, where she accused Planned Parenthood of harvesting the organs of fetuses.
The Center of Reproductive Rights recently promoted their Draw the Line campaign, in which actresses Elizabeth Banks, Bellamy Young, Amy Brenneman, Mercedes Mason, Mary McCormack and Dascha Polanco recited the stories of women who have had abortions for a range of reasons. The campaign is meant to shed light of the Supreme Court case Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole. The case will be brought to court on March 2 and will address the Texas legislators passing of HB2, which imposed many restrictions on abortion access. According to the Reproductive Right Organization, the two most notable restrictions are:
1. Doctors who provide abortion services must obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals no father than 30 miles away from the clinic; and
2. Every health care facility offering abortion care must meet building specifications to essentially become mini-hospitals.
These two restrictions unfairly apply mainly to women’s health providers. The Reproductive Rights Organization calculated that since these restrictions were put in place, the 40 state facilities have began shutting down because of their inability to meet the requirements, and now the number has fallen to a measly 12 open facilities.
The campaign is important because usually, when people hear that a woman aborted her child, they assume that the baby was a careless mistake. Thoughts also range to irresponsibility, incapability to support the child because of poverty, and other implications with bad connotations. However, one video addresses the issue of woman becoming pregnant by a man who raped her, while another focused on an epileptic woman who would be putting both her life and the life of the baby in jeopardy by trying to bring it to term. I don’t understand how someone can put laws in place that are meant to keep women like this away from a sometimes life-saving procedure. In the end, it is the woman’s choice to decide whether or not she can handle it. Yes, many say that adoption is always an option, but in the case of the woman who was forcibly impregnated by her abuser, imagine what kind of harm could be done to her psyche if she was forced to be reminded of being raped whenever she looked in the mirror and saw her growing stomach?
No one should have control over another persons body. You don’t know what is going on inside another person’s head, what they’re experiencing, or what they can handle. That’s why the right to choose is so essential, and why HB2 only hinders the progress Americans claim to accomplish more and more every day.
