State Level Abortion Restrictions:
An Extreme Overreach into Women's Reproductive Health Care
This article is about how in 2013, there was an extreme overreach regarding women’s reproductive health and how multiple restrictions were now put into place. Some states are banning abortion outright in an attempt to overturn the Roe vs. Wade decision. These are blatantly unconstitutional and deny women the right to safe, legal abortion. Some states are banning abortion later in the pregnancy, but are then ignoring individual women’s specific circumstances. Some of these laws don’t even make exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Other states are attempting to establish “Fetal Personhood” in order to ban abortion, without exception, and restrict access to other reproductive health services. The consequences of defining “personhood” could mean banning abortion permanently, with no exceptions. States are now requiring women to have physically invasive ultrasounds before they’re allowed to get an abortion, and some are even trying to regulate abortion providers out of existence. There are now 28 states that regulate abortion providers. There are also states that are banning insurance coverage of abortion, taking away benefits women currently have and jeopardizing women’s health. Other restrictions include states limiting women’s access to non-surgical abortion, enacting longer mandatory delay requirements, and giving institutions and clinics permission to not perform abortions if they so desire. These restrictions are creating many new problems for women concerning their health and reproductive rights.
This article relates to my thesis because the new laws being put in place deprive a woman of her ability to make an extremely personal, medical decision. Politics should not be involved in a woman’s decision to get an abortion, but the more restrictions passed in order to ban abortion, the less freedom women have in terms of getting an abortion. Women have a right to an abortion at their discretion, stated in the fourteenth amendment, yet politicians are continuously trying to take away that right. If politicians are successful in banning abortions completely, then women’s rights will permanently be restricted, because their freedom to get an abortion would become void. Without the right to abortion, women have rights, but with restrictions they don’t have the freedom to use their rights.
This article relates to my thesis because the new laws being put in place deprive a woman of her ability to make an extremely personal, medical decision. Politics should not be involved in a woman’s decision to get an abortion, but the more restrictions passed in order to ban abortion, the less freedom women have in terms of getting an abortion. Women have a right to an abortion at their discretion, stated in the fourteenth amendment, yet politicians are continuously trying to take away that right. If politicians are successful in banning abortions completely, then women’s rights will permanently be restricted, because their freedom to get an abortion would become void. Without the right to abortion, women have rights, but with restrictions they don’t have the freedom to use their rights.