Abortion

In my opinion, the NARAL-Prochoice America website is way better than National Right to Life. Most of it has to do with the vibe I originally got when looking at the first page of the website. Opening the Prochoice America website, there was a picture of a woman and instantly I saw the use of the word ‘we.’ Whereas when you first open the National Right to Life webpage, you are met with block-like typewriting and it just makes you feel not welcome. Then when looking deeper into the websites, Prochoice has so many places to click on and has a box on the right that says “stories.” If I were in the situation of a pregnant woman, I would want to be able to relate to the website that’s helping me choose my future. I do not want to be met with toolbars and lists of facts that I don’t even understand. Also, the arguments Prochoice provide are much stronger than that of Right to Life. This is one section of the very first article I read that stood out to me;

“In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-­NV), who opposes legal abortion, gave an emotional and touching floor speech in which he decried violence against abortion providers and observed, ‘Those who believe in the sanctity of life cannot be selective. We must value every life – not just those with which we agree.’”

Immediately when I was reading through this website, I found myself agreeing with arguments and wanting to read more and more stories of women’s experiences and I am not even in the situation where I have to make a choice. I did not feel this sense of comfort and confidence when I looked at the Right to Life website. After clicking on the first link under ‘First Trimester” I was met with a detailed description of how a certain abortion procedure goes and all the ways I could die. I wanted to puke after reading that, but gave it another chance. I clicked on the link “When Does Life Begin.” I was then shown two pictures of a fetus and facts were once again being shoved down my throat. Basically, they were saying that I’m killing a child and by doing so, he or she cannot become an adult. Like I didn’t know that. In general, I felt attacked when looking at the Right to Life website.  Therefore, the NARAL-Prochoice America website is much better because it is more relatable and stronger.

In my opinion, it is the person’s choice as to whether or not they tell their parents. If a girl is strong enough to walk into a room and tell a stranger that she needs an abortion, she is independent enough to not have to tell her parents. Some people may think that it’s contradictory; if she was so independent, why did she get pregnant in the first place? Or if she’s so independent, why can’t she take care of the baby? Well here’s my question; what if she was raped? What if she had an abusive father that made her have sex? A person’s business is a person’s business and that is that. It is her body and she knows what is best for her.

I do not believe the father has a right to consent to the abortion. He has a right to have knowledge of the pregnancy, but not consent. If a girl was raped, how is she supposed to get consent from the father? Is it right to make her find the man who raped her, look him in the eye and tell him to sign some papers so she can terminate the pregnancy he forced upon her? No, it’s not right.

Two things that stood out to me when reading the Illinois laws on abortion were the Abortion Ban and the Insurance Prohibition for Abortion. I agree with the courts decisions to rule two Illinois laws unconstitutional regarding health and how many procedures are allowed. The Illinois law states that women can have abortion only when there is a risk of losing her life and this undoubtedly undermines the freedom of choice that our nation so strongly has failed at upholding. The law then continues by limiting the number of procedures to one, which is extremely unconstitutional. So the Illinois law will allow a woman to get an abortion because of health issues the first time, but then not again? How does that make sense? The woman still has the same health issues as the first time. The law also makes any abortion procedure performed other than those necessary due to health as a felony. Also, Illinois law states that insurance policies do not need to include abortion unless the pregnancy threatens the woman’s life. In my opinion, this law should be overruled as it should be the company’s choice as to whether or not they include abortion in their insurance policy. The laws I agree with are Contraceptive Equity, Emergency Contraception and Low-Income Women’s access to both abortion and family planning.

is freedom of speech a legit freedom?

           I just read this article, Texas: Judge Halts an Abortion Requirement (published by the New York Times), about a lawsuit in Texas over a law that was going to be passed regarding abortion. This law "[required] a doctor to perform a sonogram before an abortion." On its way to be approved on September 1, 2011, Judge Sam Sparks of Austin, Texas, argued that this law was in violation of the First Amendment. His reasoning was that doctors were being violated of their freedom of speech by being asked to show women a sonogram of their living, breathing fetus, which might change their choice in abortion. Even further, this law required women who were pregnant because of a sexual assault to sign a form to allow the doctor to perform a sonogram. Judge Sparks ruled that “the state cannot compel a woman to disclose such private information that she may not even wish to tell the police.”

Over this past week in class, we rigorously discussed where the line of freedom of speech is drawn. Cases we covered included Tinker vs. Des Moines, Morse vs. Frederick and Bethel School Dist. No. 403 vs. Fraser. While these cases argued over rights of speech in a school setting, unlike the case of an abortion, the same question is still asked; where do we draw the line of what is freedom of speech and what isn’t? The truth is: you really can’t. The First Amendment of the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” Now some people may say, well abortion isn’t a form of speech—it is an action. But as we discovered in class, some actions we take are just another way of speaking out loud. For example, in the case of Tinker vs. Des Moines, Mary Beth and John Tinker wore black armbands to their public school to showcase their disagreement with the Vietnam War. The school made a rule that no students were allowed to wear these black armbands, and if they did wear them and refused to remove them, they would be suspended from school. When the Tinker kids were suspended for refusing to remove their armbands at school, their father filed suit. The court held that the school policy was in violation of the First Amendment.

I agree completely with the decision of the court. I also agree with Judge Sparks that putting the law into action would be unconstitutional. A doctor is being completely violated if he is being required to show a patient something he does not thing is right or necessary. As a doctor, he knows his patients well and would be going against any patient-doctor trust by following through with this law. Also, if a woman has made the decision to have an abortion, she should not be forced to witness the living and breathing fetus inside her. The guilt that would come with that is a complete injustice to her free right of choice between pro-life or pro-abortion.