In 2022, Roe v. Wade was overruled and therefore a right to an abortion was no longer guaranteed as a constitutional right. Abortion care is widely debated in America. It has been turned over to the states to determine if an abortion is lawful or not. It is within the power of the citizens of each state to vote on a decision either by supporting abortion rights through referenda or by voting for state legislatures or governors who will enact the sort of abortion laws they favor.
The power is back the the hands of the common people. The common people are the ones who need abortion care or know someone affected by abortion care. We the people must know why this aspect of healthcare is vital, and should be kept legal. In a 2004 study, 74% of participants had abortions due to an emotional and financial responsibility to individuals other themselves that was multi-dimensional (Biggs). These situations of pregnancy can force a dramatic life change, and some people know they will have an inability to afford a baby. Others may not want to be a single mother, or may not be ready for a child. The other significant justification could be focused on the fetal or maternal health as reason for abortion (Biggs). These are all reasonable explanations for the motive behind their decision.
It is reasonable to have an abortion in America. Individuals who seek abortion for emotional and financial reasons may have lasting consequences if they do not receive abortion care. Those consequences may sometimes be wonderful, but sometimes they may be horrible. Many things can happen when a child is born in the wrong time of another’s life. Many cannot afford to meet on the expenses of a child. This can lead to the to reliance on community, state, and federal support systems. Child bearing reduces time for work or school, and may create a need to go part-time. This will also lead to a reliance on other supports and resources. It is reasonable to want to be able to work full time and support yourself. It is not selfish to want to be in a stable position in life. The values of self-reliance and self-sufficiency and personal autonomy can all be supported by decisions to end a pregnancy with an abortion. Being able to have access to abortion care tends to show an overall trend of less reliance on other support systems.
Another reason for an abortion is concern for one’s health or the health of an infant. People may have an abortion for a variety of reasons. The other major reason for abortion is concern for one’s health or for the health of an infant. Sometimes the developing fetus can become an elevated risk for a mother to continue to carry. This could be the end of the mother if she gave birth, and sometimes the infant too. This can leave families motherless or without any guardians. In other cases, the developing fetus can have birth defects, developmental problems, structural abnormalities, and genetic disorders or mutations. All of these can lead to the decision to terminate the pregnancy as the birth could lead to early death or overall poor quality of life. Children deserve to have a healthy life with the same choices and opportunities everyone has. Children should not have to suffer their birth defects throughout what life they have until their eventual death.
Overall, Abortion care is widely debated in America. It has been turned over to the states to determine if an abortion is lawful or not, this means it is within the power of the citizens of each state to vote on a decision. The power is in our hands to make the choice.
Works Cited
Biggs, M Antonia, et al. “Understanding Why Women Seek Abortions in the US.” BMC Women’s Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 5 July 2013, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3729671/.
“Roe v. Wade.” Edited by Center for Reproductive Rights, Center for Reproductive Rights, 1 Apr. 2024, reproductiverights.org/roe-v-wade/.
I wonder if you have anticipated the best argument in favor of states banning, restricting, and outlawing abortion or certain types of abortions. For me, the best argument in favor of abortion bans would be based on the value of preserving life, the right of people to have life, and the human and civil rights of unborn children. This is a strong position if we accept the assumption that the value of life, the sacredness of life, or the rights of a person begin in the potential person in the mother’s womb at some early stage.
To me, it seems the way to answer this position is to reject the assumption that the rights of life begin early in the pregnancy. Also, on what is this assumption that the sacredness or value of life begins early in the pregnancy, rather than at some later point, perhaps 10, 12, 15, or 20 weeks after fertilization? It seems to me that it is based on religious beliefs that are specific to some religions, but not universally held by all religions, and not held by many people who do not profess religious beliefs. So, by banning abortion, it seems to me that the government is stepping in and favoring the religious beliefs of specific sects and faiths over others. That is also a violation of a fundamental value of government: to not impose one set of theological beliefs on everyone else.
The crux of the matter is that we have no consensus on when the person begins. Without a widely understood point in the gestation where we have a consensus that the unborn have the rights of those who have been born, we should defer to medical professionals and the moral conscience of the patients and doctors.
Yet another problem is that when the state intervenes in this matter, the politicians are also stepping in between the mother and her physicians. As I see it, relationships between patients and physicians must be respected, and the government should only in special cases make laws restricting the procedures that the medical profession can recommend or physicians implement. If a procedure is risky, offers little hope of benefit, and a strong probability of harm, I can accept government regulation of it to outlaw or discourage the remedy, but otherwise, it seems to me that physicians and their patients must decide for themselves what is medically necessary and what risks are worth taking and what the benefits are. I do not like the government getting in the way of the relationships between physicians and patients.
A further problem we have here with the regulation of abortion is that it seems to me that we do have a constitutional right to privacy. The concept of “privacy” was widely understood and discussed at the time the constitution was written. When specific rights were listed in the Constitution, the authors made it clear that the Constitution was not providing a complete list of all the rights held by citizens—the Constitution only mentioned a few out of many that were understood or rightly held by citizens. I believe the Court was correct in 1973 to suggest that laws forbidding abortion were infringements of a right implied but not specifically named in the Constitution. Laws allowing citizens to take away this right are unconstitutional.
We have a democracy in which legislatures and the people can make any law they want to make up to a point, but in the end, the final say rests with our Constitution. The Constitution is essentially our dictator, our monarch, our law that stands above the laws we can make in Congress or state legislatures or treaties (well, maybe treaties stand with the Constitution above all other laws, but they are easily abandoned, unlike the Constitution). It seems to me that the Supreme Court erred in 2022 with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization by failing to respect the right to due process, the right to privacy, and the right to be free from the establishment of a state religion. The U.S. Constitution is the law that is enforced by coercion, and it forbids the secular power of government, which is the coercive force of the public, from forcing through threat of violence (police and legal action that could deprive people of their property or freedom) laws that reflect specific religious beliefs, or interference in the relationship between the medical profession—its physicians—and their patients, or violations of the rights to privacy we all hold.
It may be that there is another moral law that would in most cases make abortion a wrongful action, and in some religious codes of law abortion might be banned in some circumstances or approved in other circumstances, but in cases of religious law or personal moral choices, the government must stay out of these, and allow citizens to exercise their own autonomous and independent moral judgment.
No comments:
Post a Comment