Women Losing Freedom

The comic Doonesbury creates a pretty realistic image of the political battle that today's women are currently fighting that is reducing our freedoms as women and as American citizens. Everyone deserves the protection of reproductive rights and no government should be able to take those rights away.

The World Health Organization defined reproductive rights as the "basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and timing of their children,  to have the information and means to do so, and to have the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.

During the case Roe v. Wade in 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion prior to fetal viability (the time at which a fetus is potentially able to live outside the mother's womb). Or after viability if the Mother's life is at risk. I feel legislation has been regressing instead of moving forward in the almost 40 years since that case ruling.Current legislation among states and even the federal government have violated many of these standards especially in Texas where anti-abortion laws are the most extreme.

Texas has sliced its two-year family planning budget from $111 million to $38 million causing more than a dozen clinics like Planned Parenthood to close and potentially eliminating services for nearly 284,000 women. They have also passed a law that forces a woman seeking an abortion to go through a lengthy and stressful process before being legally able to have the procedure.

As described in the article "When States Abuse Women" a woman, "first must endure an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina. Then she listens to the audio thumping of the fetal heartbeat and watches the fetus on an ultrasound screen. She must listen to a doctor explain the body parts and internal organs of the fetus as they’re shown on the monitor. She signs a document saying that she understands all this, and it is placed in her medical files. Finally, she goes home and must wait 24 hours before returning to get the abortion."

Some argue this force of intravaginal ultrasound is borderline rape. This violates a woman's freedom to privacy as promised in the Roe v. Wade decision but her reproductive freedom by exposing her to discrimination and forcing her into an almost violent situation. It will not put an end to abortion but only increase the number of deaths caused by women who seek illegal or more dangerous methods of abortion.

These budget cuts to women's health care and family planning programs reduces more services that are essential to a healthy life than it does abortions. Services such as breast cancer screenings,  free birth control pills and pap smears for cervical cancer to name a few are now virtually impossible to receive for many low income families.

I feel reproductive rights for every women, not just those seeking an abortion, are at great risk with middle-aged men making the majority of the decisions mostly off their own religious beliefs and bias opinions. I'm not saying whether having an abortion is right or wrong but every woman should have the freedom to make that decision on their own and no one should be able to choose for them.

A response from a New York Times reader:
"At a tad over 80, I feel as if I am being dragged back into the dark ages for women. Contraception and abortion are being played out in the political arena, where efforts to limit or deny women’s reproductive rights are being debated by those people least qualified to do so."

-JANET HELLER, Baltimore, Feb. 29, 2012

Sources:
Article "When States Abuse Women"
Article "Women in Texas Losing Options for Health Care in Abortion Fight"
Reproductive Rights Defined
Roe v. Wade