Access to abortion is a fundamental right

“I long for the day that Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history.” —Mike Pence

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was the unsafest decision made by the government and by far the most egregious act that happened in the United States, especially as we are trying to overcome horrific events from the last two to three years. We are still recovering from the backlash from the BLM protests and the school shooting in Uvalde, TX. But instead of focusing on policies and solving those issues, women’s reproductive rights became the focus. The fact that a man in a position of power was looking forward to the day women’s rights would be revoked is inhumane. As a group of men who can’t give birth nor carry a pregnancy to term or at all, why are you all concerned with what a woman does with her body? Mike Pence also said, “Ever since that day, like all of you here, I have stood without apology for the sanctity of human life and stood with young women in crisis pregnancies with compassion and care all across this country.” But how can you say this when many women will die due to being forced to carry out pregnancies?

The overturning of Roe v. Wade does not only apply to women but young girls who aren’t having safe sex and those who get pregnant without consent. Regardless of which it is, pregnancy can be very dangerous, especially for women of color. The CDC’s national center for health statistics reports that “In 2020, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.9 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women.” These statistics alone should make women of color scared to have children because there is no reason why that number is so high compared to women of other races.

“The legacy of American doctors abusing, including forcibly sterilizing, Black patients still has repercussions” … “The lack of trust between African-American women and their doctors and hospitals can impair the kind of care that you get.” There is a lack of care and respect Black women can get when facing pregnancy whether they want the child or not, furthering the point that abortion can save lives.

“My idea of how choice should have developed was not a privacy notion, not a doctor’s right notion, but a woman’s right to control her own destiny, to be able to make choices without a Big Brother state telling her what she can and cannot do.” This quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg captures how I feel perfectly. The United States can slowly become a controlled nation and that is what it feels like when they take away fundamental rights, but phrase it as “saving lives.”

Some argue that “abortion is murder” but that’s like me saying making eggs is murder. The egg was never alive to begin with, so there was nothing to ever murder. A fetus before the eight-week mark isn’t a baby, so getting an abortion before eight weeks can’t be murder because there wasn’t anything alive to kill. It makes sense to be able to get an abortion before week 12 of pregnancy. In some medical cases, some are done after 24 weeks but none ever reach the 40-week mark, meaning before the baby is the full term it’s terminated so regardless it’s not murder. Let’s not forget women can get an abortion at 6 weeks meaning before the 8/9-week mark meaning even before the fetus becomes a fetus (before all the organs are developed etc).

Being a woman is hard from the start, from “wear a dress” to “be a proper lady” and all the extra gender-based inequalities that are draining. Furthermore being told what to do with the one thing we should have control over, our bodies. To all the young women out there, don’t allow anyone to take your power away, stay strong and keep fighting. To those that love to take power, you are no better than an oppressor.