Authors: Melina Nguyen and Joanna Maldonado

Women deserve full and accessible rights to abortion and birth control nationwide by ameliorating the inequalities between men and women concerning contraceptives and birth control. In 1973, the Supreme Court in the case of Roe v. Wade ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a woman’s liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion, although there is much interpretation of the circumstances for abortion. According to the NWLC, “Roe did far more than establish the right to abortion; it solidified and expanded the constitutional ‘right to privacy.’”

In the United States, women have been deprived equal sexual rights to men. Concerning sexual intercourse between a man and a woman, a woman is expected to be responsible for birth control such birth control pills and IUDs in the case that the man forgets condoms, a very common form of birth control. While men can just withdraw from a woman’s vagina to prevent ejaculation inside the woman, a proven ineffective way to prevent pregnancy, women are burdened with the fear or possible reality of a baby if the man doesn’t withdraw correctly or quickly enough. In most instances, men in these relationships tend to abandon the new mother and baby, reaffirming the gender stereotypes and male privilege found in society.

Women who wish to get access to birth control, should not be penalized and any woman who engages in sexual intercourse (either consensually or by rape) and results in pregnancy, should have the option of getting an abortion as a health treatment. Therefore, a woman should decide what she is to do with her own body, not have people in the government tell her how she should live her life.

In the past week, states like Georgia, Alabama, and Ohio have passed forms of anti-abortion legislation, including the “heartbeat bill” which attempts to ban any abortion after the detection of the fetus’s heartbeat. With a conservative majority dominating the Supreme Court, many state legislators are rushing to pass anti-abortion laws in order to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision. However, all the 25 senators who passed the abortion bill are Republican white men who have absolutely no right to dictate a woman’s body and her right to abortion. Pro-life Republicans argue that abortion is murder while disregarding the mental impact an unwanted pregnancy on the mother. Abortion is a choice that depends on every individual woman; a male legislator should not be one to decide what is allowed for a woman’s body.

1. There should be more representation of women in House and Senate chambers, so that there can be input on women’s health by women.
2. Health officials and doctors as well as women’s health clinics like Planned Parenthood should provide insight and input about the circumstances of a healthy abortion, the complications of abortions, and the viability of the fetus from a medical standpoint.
3. As long as the Roe v. Wade decision is in effect, all 50 states in the United States should follow a cohesive and identical legislation as it presented a decision that is recognized nationwide.
4. The government should not interfere with personal rights nor their decisions. It should also not penalize women more than rapists, domestic terrorists, and other major crime perpetrators.
5. Birth control should be more accessible, and affordable.
6. It should be covered under insurance, like any other medicine.

As a nation, supporters of either pro-life or pro-choice, and as humans regardless of gender, the wellbeing  of the mother should surmount any opposition. Women’s health should be women’s choice.