Recently, the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississipi have mandated a law that bans abortion and makes the procedure a felony, sentencing a person up to ninety-nine years of prison time. These states have prohibited abortion, procuring to the right to live for a fetus. While some laws ban abortion after a heartbeat can be detected, others do so depending on the number of weeks into the pregnancy.
The 1973 infamous case that establishes the landmark of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion, Roe v. Wade saw an attempt to be overturned through the recently enacted anti-abortion measures by the US Supreme Court. The court stands for the fetus’ right to life, considering it paramount and welcomes the groups fighting against the anti-abortion law by giving them a chance to fight against the fetus’ living right.
“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” – Florynce Kennedy
This law has divided humans into two groups- those fighting for their right to abortion, primarily consisting of women who argue that rules about the female body cannot be decided or carried out by men who have very little to no idea about the matter. The other group includes those who fight for the life of a fetus, carrying out its right to live and to be born.
Banning of birth-control and now, abortion has raised a dilemma among women concerning their health and precautionary measures related to it. It is not just a right concerning health, but the reproductive right of women as they are the ones who bear the fetus and they stand to challenge this prohibition through “My body my choice” campaign in several areas of America. The question they ask is – why should women adhere to the laws constructed by the patriarchy, a societal structure that knows nothing about the functioning and structuring of the female body?
Pregnancy is either planned, or it’s not. A heinous crime like rape further raises many moral questions, so, there should be a right to planned parenthood. Even if the U.S bans abortion legally, it can take place illegally no doubt, which is harmful to the mother as well. The enactment of this law just carries out the idea of “men’s rights for women.” Pushing them out of the power to decide for their own body, now. On one hand, huge masses are organized against the ban; on the other hand, masses are celebrating this ban saying that abortion is like murder.
Here lies the fight, all the protesting, in the question of whats and ifs, mostly that the patriarchy has failed to give the answers to.
The fight is between the innocence of one and the health and living of another. There is no fight between what is wrong or what is right. While, there may lie two different sides to the picture, but merely two different opinions. It is a right, the right of women to make their choice, to decide and not anyone else’s, to imply onto them. The matter that ravishes is of politics blending with the patriarchal power, and the question keeps on getting bigger and bigger. The issue of gender equality, human rights, and constitutional rights. The right to safe and legal abortion and the right to live.
Whose right does one overlook and whose right does one see and adhere to?
Who becomes the priority- the innocent that had no idea of its faith or the life who had no idea of another life brewing inside them?
Be the first to comment