I am completely and utterly
against this new empowering “requirement” that is being bestowed against my
kind. As a woman, my rights are being challenged.
New state law requires
that to have an abortion in Texas women must (twenty-four hours prior to the
abortion) get an ultrasound of the fetus that they are intending on
terminating. Anyone that is whatsoever analytical should be able to figure out
what’s so wrong with this horrifying demand.
With the help of our
outstanding Governor, Rick Perry, he pushed and then passed this bill. This is
the man who’s pro-life but according to The Huffington Post is also for the death penalty. If Perry can believe in the
saying “abortion is murder” how can he not say the same thing about the death
penalty? Ironic, I know. Then to be making decisions for the sake of women all
over Texas, it’s nauseating. To think that he is not only Governor of Texas but
was also a presidential candidate blows my mind.
It seems as if Texans are
slowly losing their rights as American citizens, why not add this one to the
list? In this case women are losing their right to privacy as well as our right to free speech because it violates the rights of both doctors and patients.
Let’s say a teenage adolescent chooses
to not abort because of these distasteful sonograms that the government is forcing
women to see. What happens then for the well being of the child? What happens
when the maturity level of this teen mom can’t handle having to take care of
somebody else? According to new data from the CDC, siblings of teen parents are
two to six more likely to become pregnant as teens than younger siblings of
teens who are not parents. So why don’t we take a reasonable approach to
this delicate circumstance and stop trying to brainwash women into thinking
what they’re doing is ill-advised. It is their god given right to do what they
want with their own body, and nobody else should have a say so.
If you decide on having the
child instead of an abortion, then so be it! But you shouldn’t have to be persuaded to give birth, you should want
to have a child and be ready for one. The government shouldn’t be poking its
nose into other people’s business and especially
men trying to make decisions about what women can and cannot do.
Louise Melling, director of the Center for
Liberty at the American Civil Liberties Union once said, “Even if we
disagree on the issue of abortion, we can agree that these are private personal
decisions we all must be able to make based on our own circumstances, beliefs,
and values… It is neither my place nor our government's place to make such an
important life decision for someone else...”
So no matter what your stance on abortion is, the decision to
have one should not be based solely on what the government endorses but your own personal convictions.
While your rights may be "challenged" by these laws, the way I see it is that such legislation is trying to provide the most basic right to the "fetus"- the right to be seen for what it actually is, a baby. It is words like "fetus" that de-humaize and make lesser of such a weighty issue.
ReplyDeleteWhat Governor Perry, and others in favor of this alw are trying to do is get all women, teen or adult, who are considering having an abortion to realize what exactly they are doing by having the unborn baby "terminated." I don't think that there is anything wrong with wanting mothers to be fully informed before making that decision.
Which do you think would be worse: having a baby as a teen mom, and either keeping it or giving it up for adoption, OR making a spur of the moment decision to have an abortion and possibly going on to regret it later in life? I am completely aware that there are women who think long and hard about such a decision and still choose to have abortions, and I get that having a sonogram when one has already made their mind up to do so would be extremely difficult and uncomfortable, but what on earth is wrong with thinking twice?
I know a women who is now in her late thirties and has two kids, who got pregnant and ended up aborting her baby and I know for a fact that there is no decision that she regrets more. If she had been required to have a sonogram as this law requires, she may have decided to have the baby and either keep it or give it up for adoption (an alternative that I believe you overlooked), both of which would have saved her the immense pain and and suffering that her choice has brought upon her.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you Chloe for your post regarding abortion here in the state of Texas. This is something I feel incredibly passionate about, but chose not to write about this only because I felt it would be a significant feat to undertake :) It really is sad that we have to have these sorts of conversations, isn't it? Much like the whole gay marriage debate, this is a question on whether or not it's alright to intrude on one's privacy. It's really nobody's business.
ReplyDeleteChloe brought up a pretty valid argument, one that has always been in the back of my mind but I've actually never put a whole lot of thought into. How can our governor so vehemently support the death penalty but oppose abortion? I guess the thinking is that those who are on death row "deserve" to die, and a fetus is innocent and has a right live. I get it, but I strongly disagree with it. I really appreciated Chloe putting this thought down into writing though.
Another interesting point that Chloe brought up, one that I had never even considered, was the data regarding the siblings of teen parents. This is something that I have actually never heard. Apparently, siblings of teens who have a baby are at a much higher rate to become a teen parent as well. Not surprising, but still very interesting to me.
One thing I wish Chloe would have talked about was how taxing it can be for a woman to carry a baby to term she has no intention of keeping. This is something the pro-lifers could come back and argue, that if a woman doesn't want a baby she should just put it up for adoption after it's born. I felt like this was an important argument Chloe should have brought up. People don't seem to understand that it's not that easy for a woman to simply go through all the motions of being pregnant and taking care of the fetus she doesn't want. Especially if the women has been raped. But that is a topic for another day. Just some food for thought.
Overall, I thought this was a very good, insightful post. I really appreciated the two, incredibly valid arguments Chloe made, and the ideology behind her stance on the issue at hand. It almost makes me wish we were in a classroom setting so I could actually hear Chloe, and my other fellow students, articulate their thoughts into words, rather than writing.
Chloe, I really enjoyed reading your post and I agree with many of your arguments, especially the idea that abortion choice should be a matter of personal conviction, not governmental coercion.
ReplyDeleteYou described the new sonogram requirement as “empowering.” I know this was a sarcastic jab at the claims of the pro-lifers out there, but I’m quite confused about their stance. Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, declared the ruling to be a “huge victory for women in Texas” (The Daily Texan). What, exactly, did women win? As you mentioned, I only see a loss of rights here.
I also like that you mentioned the teenage pregnancy cycle and Alec’s comment about how taxing pregnancy can be on the mother (not to mention on young mothers still in the throes of hormonal changes and developing their own identities). I’d also like to bring up the quality of life of the children of teenage mothers. While it usually seems to be taken for granted that life is better than no life, many of the children born to teenage mothers do not live easy lives. According to Adoption Education, “80% of young teenage moms end up in poverty and on welfare.” Just because a baby is born does not mean that it will have a wonderful life. “A study in Illinois found that children of teenage mothers are twice as likely to be abused and neglected than are children of 20 or 21 year old mothers” (Adoption Education). I’m not saying that the children of poor, young mothers should automatically be denied life, but I personally would have trouble bringing a child into the world if I knew I couldn’t emotionally or financially provide for it.
However, I wasn’t quite clear on your equating abortion to the death penalty. Abortion entails the loss of life before the fetus (or “baby”) has developed into a fully-formed individual whereas the death penalty is delivered as punishment for the choices a fully-formed individual has made. As Alec mentioned, the fetus is, to a large extent, innocent while death penalty victims are considered quite the opposite (although Texas may not always get it right).
There was one point you didn’t touch on that I found particularly motivating. With these new restrictions and others (such as the overtly religious pre-abortion counseling in South Dakota), I believe fewer physicians will become abortion providers. And while this is undoubtedly a win for the pro-lifers, I think the quality of care for abortion services will suffer and the “huge victory” Ms. Northup declared will be overshadowed by poorer services available to women. The United States is home to a very capitalistic brand of medicine, where doctors compete for services and accordingly improve their services to attract more patients. This results in medical innovation and high quality standards. If you discourage physicians to practice in a particular field, quality attained through competition will suffer. In short, you will be “forcing pregnant women to receive medical treatment from less-skilled providers,” which U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks says “certainly seems to be at odds with ‘protecting the physical and psychological health and well-being of pregnant women,’ one of the Act’s stated purposes” (Houston Chronicle). I wholeheartedly agree.
Chloe, I strongly agree with many of the points you made in your "The Bright Side Of Suffering" article posted on your blog. Your passion for women's suffrage is something I can understand and this is a serious issue that should be dealt with. I agree with the point made in regards to the law passed that requires a sonogram 24 hours prior to an abortion. It seems wrong and unjust. The ethos persuasion tactic used by the government to try and prevent abortion is unconventional.
ReplyDeleteA similar article posted on ';We Have No Choice': One Woman's Ordeal with Texas' New Sonogram Law addresses the same issues with the new Texas Abortion Law. A point made in the article that I strongly agree with was the fact that the sonogram law passed isn't effective in instances where the mother must terminate a baby that is terminally ill. The emotional tactic the government uses makes the experience much more traumatic then necessary. It is even worse in a situation like in this article, where the choice had to be made for specific health reasons. The mothers states "But what good is the view of someone who has never had to make your terrible choice?" in other words, officials that have passed this law cannot comprehend the difficulties a mother deals with when aborting a child.
In conclusion to the points discussed above, the new sonogram requirement for an abortion is unnecessary and emotionally scarring. Although Texas government finds it its duty to persuade women to refrain from having an abortion, I don't believe their strategy is morally just. Chloe, thank you for your informative article in regards to the Texas Abortion law. I agree with the points made, and hope for a change in Texas law.