Abortion Laws
Anyone who has checked their social media in the past few days has heard about the latest political blowup in the USA: first Georgia, and now Alabama, passing nearly outright bans on abortion. I'm not informed enough about most political issues to be able to form an opinion, hence why I rarely take a stance on any current political issues, but abortion is a topic I feel strongly enough about and know enough about to speak up about it.
In case you're a little behind on current events, here's the lowdown of it. In Georgia, a bill has been signed that would cause abortions to be "illegal once a heartbeat has been detected"1. Typically a fetal heartbeat becomes detectable around the six week mark. Based on the American Pregnancy Association's data2, the average woman doesn't find out that she is pregnant until between the fourth and seventh week of pregnancy, with the most obvious symptom of pregnancy (morning sickness) not arising until around the sixth week. This can make it extremely difficult to know you are pregnant before the cutoff for being able to legally have an abortion under this new bill. Thankfully, this bill includes an exception for pregnancies in the cases of rape and incest (as long as the pregnancy is under twenty weeks and there was an official report of the rape/incest filed).
Alabama went down a similar road, also banning abortions past six weeks, but their bill does not include an exception for cases of rape or incest3. Twenty-five of the thirty-five seats of the senate of Alabama which voted to pass this bill were white cisgender men. As far as I remember, cisgender men do not have uteri, so I personally do not understand why a topic concerning only those with uteri is being so heavily decided upon by those without uteri.
These bills have not turned into law yet, so as of now abortion is still legal in all fifty states up until week twenty of pregnancy, but these bills are growing in numbers and there is more and more support for them arising throughout the government of the USA.
For those of you who lean towards the pro-life side of things, here are some facts for you to consider. Some women who have abortions have been raped. Some women who have abortions are teenagers, some even pre-teens, and cannot financially support a child, or perhaps simply do not want to be a teen mom. Teenagers who get pregnant are at higher medical risks when giving pregnant due to their bodies not being fully developed yet4. Some women who have abortions simply do not want to have a child, and I know that a common argument for that is 'why not just put the child up for adoption then,' but you must consider: nine months of pregnancy and the physical effects that has on a woman's body; the medical costs of prenatal care and childbirth; the emotional turmoil of carrying a child to term and giving birth and putting that child up for adoption; as well as the medical risks of pregnancy. Birth control fails sometimes, no method of birth control besides complete abstinence is 100% effective, and I do not believe it is reasonable to expect all women who do not want a child to abstain from sex.
It also terrifies me how easily rapists get off for their crimes, such as one case5 where a rapist charged with three charges of felony sexual assault only served three months of jail time. If you do not believe rape deserves a far more serious punishment, if you do not understand the kind of pain it can cause, then I recommend reading this article: here
The world has a lot of good in it, but it's important to fight against the bad as well rather than to simply sit on the sidelines and watch it all unfold. I do not have the money to donate to organizations, I do not have a loud voice in my community, but I can try and reach the few people who follow me on social media, and hopefully it will slowly spread out, just enough to make a little bit of a difference, because every little bit counts.
In case you're a little behind on current events, here's the lowdown of it. In Georgia, a bill has been signed that would cause abortions to be "illegal once a heartbeat has been detected"1. Typically a fetal heartbeat becomes detectable around the six week mark. Based on the American Pregnancy Association's data2, the average woman doesn't find out that she is pregnant until between the fourth and seventh week of pregnancy, with the most obvious symptom of pregnancy (morning sickness) not arising until around the sixth week. This can make it extremely difficult to know you are pregnant before the cutoff for being able to legally have an abortion under this new bill. Thankfully, this bill includes an exception for pregnancies in the cases of rape and incest (as long as the pregnancy is under twenty weeks and there was an official report of the rape/incest filed).
Alabama went down a similar road, also banning abortions past six weeks, but their bill does not include an exception for cases of rape or incest3. Twenty-five of the thirty-five seats of the senate of Alabama which voted to pass this bill were white cisgender men. As far as I remember, cisgender men do not have uteri, so I personally do not understand why a topic concerning only those with uteri is being so heavily decided upon by those without uteri.
These bills have not turned into law yet, so as of now abortion is still legal in all fifty states up until week twenty of pregnancy, but these bills are growing in numbers and there is more and more support for them arising throughout the government of the USA.
For those of you who lean towards the pro-life side of things, here are some facts for you to consider. Some women who have abortions have been raped. Some women who have abortions are teenagers, some even pre-teens, and cannot financially support a child, or perhaps simply do not want to be a teen mom. Teenagers who get pregnant are at higher medical risks when giving pregnant due to their bodies not being fully developed yet4. Some women who have abortions simply do not want to have a child, and I know that a common argument for that is 'why not just put the child up for adoption then,' but you must consider: nine months of pregnancy and the physical effects that has on a woman's body; the medical costs of prenatal care and childbirth; the emotional turmoil of carrying a child to term and giving birth and putting that child up for adoption; as well as the medical risks of pregnancy. Birth control fails sometimes, no method of birth control besides complete abstinence is 100% effective, and I do not believe it is reasonable to expect all women who do not want a child to abstain from sex.
It also terrifies me how easily rapists get off for their crimes, such as one case5 where a rapist charged with three charges of felony sexual assault only served three months of jail time. If you do not believe rape deserves a far more serious punishment, if you do not understand the kind of pain it can cause, then I recommend reading this article: here
The world has a lot of good in it, but it's important to fight against the bad as well rather than to simply sit on the sidelines and watch it all unfold. I do not have the money to donate to organizations, I do not have a loud voice in my community, but I can try and reach the few people who follow me on social media, and hopefully it will slowly spread out, just enough to make a little bit of a difference, because every little bit counts.
1 https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2019/05/14/alabama-abortion-georgia-abortion-law-ban-heartbeat-bill/3669043002/↩
2 https://americanpregnancy.org/week-by-week/5-weeks-pregnant/↩
3 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/14/alabama-abortion-ban-white-men-republicans↩
4 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-pregnancy↩
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner↩
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