We want Life & Equality / Topic : Abortion 

A 20-year old college student goes outside on a late night grocery store run to get some milk. She lives with her single, undocumented mother. At 9:04 pm a man in a black coat, wearing a hat,  who’s been following her for two blocks assaults her. He aggressively pushes her into a nearby dumpster and rapes her, leaving her brutally beaten and bruised all over. She walks home and locks herself in her room, wishing she never went out that night. Three weeks later she finds out she’s pregnant. Now just imagine that this girl is your sister or even your friend. Stories like this happen all the time to women all over the world. Abortion is fundamental human right of women and girls, and it should always remain legal.

     Listen you male-chauvinist mysognist we have as our politicians, you can’t bare a whole other human being like us women do, you don’t get menopause, you don’t get cramps and you don’t know the emotions and/or neccesities a woman needs. According to UNFPA.org Bodily autonomy means “my body is for me; my body is my own”. Your body is yours to use and make decisions with. I feel like this can be depicted as a rhetorical device because my body is for me it’s like explaining to the audience that one’s body must be used with own will and for our happiness and in a way we allow it and want it to be used. This also means that women, or people with reproductive organs don’t owe the fetus their body, to use as a host. Pregnancies are extremely dangerous, even for those who don’t have any kind of health problems. The only reason that the fetus is “killed” during an abortion, is because there is no conclusive evidence that the fetus has even a fighting chance at survival if it were removed from the mother’s body. The fetus is living off of the woman carrying it and it is her decision, not the government’s, whether or not she wants to allow the fetus to live off of her. In the same way that you would not force someone to donate a kidney, you can not force someone to donate their uterus for nine months just to give a fetus, which is not even fully developed, a possibility at life.

       On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in the case of Roe vs. Wade, a challenge to a Texas statute that made it a crime to perform an abortion, unless a woman’s life was at stake, according to planned parenthood . The case had been filed by “Jane Roe,” an unmarried woman who wanted to safely and legally end her pregnancy. This decision was a really important one. Women had been fighting for the rights to their own body for many years. After roe vs wade was established as precedent, we thought that we were safe. But in recent years, things started to change for the worse. I feel like the picture really showed when it quoted “Protect Roe” as in saying like hey protect not only the life of that unmarried woman, (god knows her circumstances) and the life of so many other woman who have it worse or simply choose to not be ready to go through with birth and/or a pregnancy.

            In the Picture we can understand that the lady is worried, disappointed by her facial expressions, and is actively tired of having to fight or protest for this case against government politics. The sign also enphasizes how big the word “ROE” is therefore giving it more importance and making it stick out since it’s written in a different color, RED. But for me that also kind of symbolizes either war or blood, which is involved in the topic because abortion is like a surgery dealing with blood, and the message itself it’s like if things don’t start to look better this is a war with women and politicians about the right to use and dispose of THEIR own body. These women’s bodily autonomy is being stripped away and it is not ok.

The political fight against anti-abortion legislation is in fact a class battle, and the reality is that abortion is only illegal for poor women. Women with resources can always interrupt their unwanted pregnancies. (Either they know a doctor who performs medical abortions for an exorbitant price, and they have the resources to travel to a place where abortion is legal, or they have the means to buy an abortion pill in their own country or elsewhere. Restricting access to safe abortions keeps poor women in poverty, In a 2018 study based on interviews with 813 women in the United States throughout five years, researchers found that women who had abortions denied to them were more likely to be in poverty within six months compared to women who were able to terminate the pregnancy. Women who are denied abortion are also less likely to have full-time work and more likely to depend on some form of public assistance. Poor, young and ethnic minority women suffer the physical and social costs imposed on them by the restrictive anti-abortion laws. Latin America is home to six countries that criminalise abortion in all cases, even in situations where a woman’s life is at risk. The United States, black women have the highest abortion rates in the country. This is a consequence of the serious wealth gap between white and black families, which remains constant even amongst poor families. While all women suffer the consequences of the battle against abortion, class reality means that women of colour feel the effects disproportionately. Most abortion patients say that they cannot afford a child or another child, and most say that having a baby would interfere with their work, school or ability to care for their other children. There are very many reasons why abortion must remain legal. 

The criminalization of abortion does not dissuade women from having abortions. This means that women will resort to unsafe abortion methods, risking their health and often even their lives to get abortions. According to the World Health Organization, 23,000 women die every year from unsafe abortions, with tens of thousands more experiencing significant health complications, globally. A ban on abortion would only increase these numbers. There are so many reasons why someone could need an abortion. It is not the place of the government to make these decisions. These laws would put women through more emotional pain than they are already dealing with and often in physical danger too. Even now, when abortion is still partially legal in all US states, we hear of women being forced to carry their dead fetus after a miscarriage and dying from unsafe or lack of access to abortion. This is not ok. We should not be fighting with the government for access to our own bodies. We should not be risking our lives because someone’s religion or someone’s misinformation made them believe that abortion is murder. 

America as a country is supposed to consist of an egalitarian society. Yet you have two of your working middle-aged woman, who you probably tax heavily and have bills due having to worry about protesting weather they can terminate an pregnancy no matter if it was unwanted or not. Just Ridiculous. 

        Abortion should ALWAYS be accessible to ALL women. There are so many cases like rape or incest , where women should not have to carry the child. Even when those things don’t apply, which can’t always be proven, a woman should not have to explain herself. The government should not control a woman’s body. A woman should have a right to make a choice, without being criminalized or judged. These actions can  lead to things like unsafe abortion and maternal fatalities. Some women don’t have the ability or resources to take care of a child. A child shouldn’t have to come into a world where they feel neglected or abused. It takes a lot of strength and power to deliver a baby into this world. A woman should always have the right to decide whether she wants to go through that or not. A woman should always have the right to choose. A woman shouldnt have to worry about being a woman, cmon let us catch a break!