State abortion law will limit right to choice
Wisconsin attorney general asks U.S. Supreme Court to review legislature aimed to complicate access to safe and legal abortions
More stories from Alyssa Anderson
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A group of pro-choice protesters gather in Madison to advocate for reproductive rights.
If I had a baby right now, my life would be ruined. My education would get put on the backburner. I would probably end up back home in the bland suburbs of Chicago with my secretly resentful parents, changing diapers and losing sleep as I dream of what could have been.
Thankfully, I have the power to choose when and if I want to have a baby. A positive pregnancy test is not a signed contract forcing me into motherhood.
At least for now.
With the recent controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood and Donald Trump’s statement that women who have abortions should be punished, it is no secret reproductive rights are facing trying times.
It appears some Republicans will do whatever it takes to restrict a woman’s right to her body. Why do these rich men care so much about what I, a broke 19-year-old college student, do with my body? If I don’t want to drop out of college to raise a child, isn’t that my choice to make? Apparently not.
An article from Milwaukee Public Radio said Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a state abortion law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Although two federal courts have declared this law unconstitutional, Schimel is under the impression that this nonsensical law will ultimately protect the wellbeing of women.
The pro-life group Wisconsin Family Action lobbied for the law, claiming that requiring abortion providers admit patients into a nearby hospital should an emergency occur, is just another precaution that will protect women’s health, according to WUWM.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin Rep. Mel Barnes did not agree. After the state passed this law in 2013, WUWM said Planned Parenthood sued.
“The intent of this law is to put obstacles in the path of women seeking safe, legal abortions care in Wisconsin,” Barnes said to WUWM.
As someone on the far left of the political spectrum, I wholeheartedly agree with Barnes.
This law makes little sense to me and the intent is abundantly clear. Republicans like Brad Schimel will continue to create obstacles until woman’s right to choice is completely restricted by law.
WUWM said Wisconsin Family Action argues the law will protect women in case of an emergency during the abortion procedure, but how many of those instances are there in reality?
According to an article from the Huffington Post, abortion-related injury or death is extremely rare and almost nonexistent. In the entire year of 2010, only 10 American women died from complications related to abortions.
Prior to the passing of Roe v. Wade in 1972, women were resorting to grotesque and drastic measures in order to receive illegal abortions. The average number of deaths by abortion in America before Roe v. Wade was approximately 700 per year, but the actual number is estimated to be much higher.
These statistics make it clear to me that access to safe and legal abortions has saved women’s lives. If Republicans are so concerned with women’s safety, why are they trying so hard to push us back into a time when abortions were always illegal and likely fatal?
Republican pro-life legislature, like the law Schimel is attempting to review, serves only as an obstacle to women’s safety and well-being. Please, Brad Schimel, mind your own business and let me be the one to control my body.
Andrew Slater • Apr 14, 2016 at 11:33 pm
Did you know that pro-life speakers are either disinvited, shouted down or never invited at all to give their arguments about abortion on college campuses anymore?
Can you name one that has appeared here at the University in, oh, say, ever?
In the spirit of open communication at a university, an institution which is intended to provide a safe place for perspectives to be challenged, I would like to explain the moral arguments against abortion that have never had fair airing. I will suggest that tolerance for the pro-life perspective has not been, let’s say, inviting.
I’ll start slow but I’ll be direct. Here goes:
Is ending the life of a human fetus moral? Does the human fetus have any value, and any rights?
It’s a scientific fact that a human fetus is human life. Those who argue that the human fetus has no rights say that a fetus is not a “person”. But even if you believe that, it doesn’t mean the fetus doesn’t have intrinsic “value” or no “rights”.
There are many living beings that are not persons that have both value and rights. A giraffe, a dog, a condor, a rabbit. None of these are persons. And that is moral argument number 1: A living being doesn’t have to be a “person” to have intrinsic moral value and to have rights.
When liberals lose this argument, they change the subject to the rights of the mother, that is: the right of a mother to end her fetus’ life, under any circumstance, for any reason, and at any time in her pregnancy.
Is that moral?
It is moral only if we believe that the human fetus has no intrinsic worth. But in most cases, almost everyone agrees that a human fetus has infinite worth. And an absolute right to live. When? As, for example, when a pregnant woman wants to give birth. Then society and the law regard the fetus as so valuable that if someone were to kill that fetus, that person could be prosecuted for homicide.
Only when a pregnant woman doesn’t want to give birth do many people regard the fetus as worthless.
Now does that make sense? It doesn’t seem to. Either the human fetus has worth, or it doesn’t. And this is Moral Argument number 2: On what moral grounds does the mother alone decide a fetus’ worth?
We certainly don’t do that with regard to a newborn child. It is society, not the mother, or the father, that determines if a newborn child has worth and a right to live.
So the question is: Why should that be different BEFORE the human being is born?
Why does one person, a mother, get to determine whether that being has a right to live?
People respond by saying “A woman has the right to control her body.” Now that is entirely correct. But the problem, however, is that the fetus is NOT her body. It is IN her body. “It” is a separate body. And that is Moral Argument number 3.
No one ever asks a pregnant woman, “How’s your body?” When asking about the fetus, people ask “How’s the baby?”
Moral Argument number 4: Virtually everyone agrees that the moment the baby comes out of the womb, killing the baby is murder. But deliberately killing it a few months before birth is considered no more morally problematic than extracting a tooth. How does that make sense?
And finally, Moral Argument number 5: Aren’t there instances in which just about everyone — including those who are pro-choice — would acknowledge that an abortion might not be moral?
For example, would it be moral to abort a female fetus solely because the mother prefers boys to girls, as has happened millions of times in China and elsewhere?
And one more example: Let’s say science develops a method for determining whether a child in womb is gay or straight. Would it be moral to kill a gay fetus because the mother didn’t want a gay child?
People may offer practical reasons not to criminalize all abortions. People may differ over when personhood begins. And about the morality of abortion after rape or incest. But with regard to the vast majority of abortions, those of : with healthy women aborting a healthy fetus, let’s be clear: Most of these abortions just aren’t moral.
Good societies can survive people doing immoral things. But a good society cannot survive if it calls immoral things “moral”.