Over 40 years after Roe vs. Wade, women are still struggling to dictate their own lives.
Within recent months sweeping legislation has been made across the nation limiting women’s rights.
This week in Florida, representatives approved the defunding of Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization that provides numerous services to women: access to contraceptives, ultrasounds, counseling, and abortion options.
Indiana has signed an anti-abortion bill that bans the procedure altogether, even in the case of fetal anomalies.
South Dakota’s governor has signed a bill that bans abortion at 19 weeks, that provides no exceptions even for incest and rape.
Even presidential candidate Donald Trump sparked debate when he stated that women should be penalized or punished for getting an abortions.
But in the most recent act in the fight for choice, the FDA has submitted new guidelines that broaden women's access to an abortion--inducing the pill.
The guidelines, issued Wednesday, allow for women to use the pill up to 70 days after their most recent menstrual period. Previously the pill was only accessible to women up to 49 days after their period.
The FDA’s new guidelines are directly in opposition with laws in several states that are aimed at limiting women’s access to the pill Mifeprex or require the women to follow stringent and tedious steps before gaining access.
This small change by the FDA has become a huge step for pro-choice advocates who have seen an increasing number of moves made by anti-abortion groups this year to prevent women from receiving medical or surgical abortions.
The fight is far from over between the two groups, until a supreme court justice is finally appointed to replace Justice Scalia’s seat.
Why is all of this so important, you may ask?
Because each and every day we are fighting for a woman’s right to do with her life what she wishes.
A woman should have the right to carry a pregnancy to term just as she has the right to terminate a pregnancy. She should have the right to choose her future.
She shouldn’t be legally bound to carry, birth, and provide for another human being. A woman should be allowed to decide when she wants to accept that responsibility.
Gender equality is said by many to be a thing that’s been achieved, but how can that be said when we are still passing laws that dictate and control the future of women everywhere? Laws that tell women what kind of future they can and can't have, laws that tell women that they can't be trusted enough to make decisions regarding their own lives, laws that bit by bit are beginning to take away a woman's right to do whatever she wants to her body.
The question I propose to many politicians trying to pass these laws against abortion is, if you can't trust women to make a decision regarding their own body and their future, then how can you trust them with a child?
