Steffi Badanes and Audrey Piehl
Reporters
New laws regarding abortion are being proposed and passed across the country, heating up the debate on both sides. So we feel that it is time to tackle the controversial issue.
Steffi: First off, I would like to point out that I am 100% pro-choice. A woman’s body is no place for a politician to be discussing legislation. Now Republicans believe that less government involvement is the way to go. But talking about legislation that make choices for women about their own body? You can’t get much more government involvement than that. Regardless of how a woman got pregnant, whether it be rape or consensual, it is not the business of legislators.
GOP members proposed to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood, a company that educates girls about contraception and provides resources to those who are pregnant, which includes abortion. If Republicans think that a woman should have to give birth to her child even if she is at fault for her unplanned pregnancy, then I would assume they would be searching for methods to prevent unplanned pregnancies from happening in the first place. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way for them, since they don’t want to support educating women about how to prevent pregnancy. It makes no sense.
South Dakota passed House Bill 1217 in the Senate, a bill that would require a woman to go through counseling and wait 72 hours before undergoing an abortion. As if getting an abortion isn’t already stressful enough. If this bill is signed, women would have to hear untrained volunteers and doctors tell them all of the physical and psychological risks of the procedure, then having to wait three days to let the additional stress sink into their minds. If a woman makes the decision to undergo the procedure, she should be able to simply go through with it without having to worry about being bullied by anti-abortion activists.
Nebraska proposed LB 232, a bill that would legalize killing someone who intends to harm an unborn child. Regardless of what the text of the bill is, it clearly opens the door to killing abortion providers. The lawmakers would call this a “justifiable homicide.” Over the years, murders of abortion doctors have occurred. If this legislation passed, another murder to an abortion doctor could easily happen again with the defense being that it was a “justifiable homicide.”
Why are these Republicans and anti-abortion activists pushing so hard to make it increasingly difficult for a woman to undergo a completely legal procedure? They claim that they are trying to protect a “person’s” basic right to exist. Now I don’t understand why this has turned into such a battle where the rights of a clump of cells in a petri dish have come first before the rights of a real human.
Audrey: I am pro-life, and I believe “that clump of cells” has every right to develop into a fully functional human being. Every woman is born with an innate responsibility over their body, and if they choose to neglect that responsibility and produce an unexpected child, that is their fault. I’m not asking for the impossible here; it’s not like there aren’t ways to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Birth control ads are becoming as frequent as those awful Olive Garden commercials, and that’s saying something. However, the GOP’s plans to cut funding for Planned Parenthood would only move things backwards. More awareness of pregnancy prevention would decrease the need for abortions in the first place.
A citizen is still a citizen when it’s a bun in the oven. Therefore, it should share the same fundamental rights. In America we promise a land of opportunity, but how can we support that claim when it can be taken away before birth? In April of 2010, Nebraska set strict limits on abortion, stating that it must take place before 20 weeks of pregnancy because by then the fetus can supposedly feel pain. In a country against torture, why would we oppose such a law? Requiring a health screening before an abortion doesn’t seem like such a bad idea other. It would be the first line of defense for the woman, catching any complications that could come up during the procedure.
But there’s a difference between some careless teenagers and a violent rape. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has recently signed a bill which will require abortion clinics to contain the almost exact conditions as a hospital. It will most likely lead to the closing of most of the state’s 21 abortion clinics. Maybe that’s a little drastic. I’m all for healthy conditions, but forcing the closing of all abortion clinics will leave little room for a perfectly justifiable procedure. If a woman cannot carry a child for health reasons or because the conception was forced upon her, she shouldn’t have nowhere to go when the technology exists. What if it’s a third-world country, and the child’s destined to die during infancy, shouldn’t the woman have the right to spare her unborn child? That’s the issue with abortion; it’s not nearly as black and white as we all would love it to be. Neither side can remain too rigid. Do I hear compromise?
Oh, and lastly but not least, the United States Congress is made up of only 16% women. Why do a bunch of middle-aged men get to make the decision either way? Last time I checked, their participation in the ordeal is usually pretty quick…
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