Roe V Wade

Prior to the 1970’s the US government was very deeply involved in the sex lives and reproductive rights of people. In the cases Skinner v. Oklahoma and Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court determined that United States citizens had the right to reproduce and could not be forced into sterilization, and that people had the right to privacy and birth control. Both of these cases lead to the basis of the case that fought for abortion rights for women.

The debate is very complicated because on one side, people are fighting for the rights of women and on the other side, people are fighting for the rights of the unborn child. It’s hard to decide who’s rights to put first. Medically though, a fetus in the first trimester is not viable so technically it isn’t a person. Yet many people believe that life begins at conception and therefore, the fetus is protected under the law. Often the argument against abortion has something to do with religion, but there is a very clear divide between church and state in this country which is important to acknowledge.

It is my personal belief that women should have the right to choose whether or not they have children on their own terms. While access to birth control has increased hugely since the time of Griswold v. Connecticut, accidents still happen and women should not be tied to motherhood if they’re not ready. Safe abortion is a right that women deserve to have because in the past, women have been forced into marriage and motherhood as their place in the world. Now that the world is changing and there are many more women in the workforce, they are choosing jobs over families which is a right they deserve to have. Not all women want to be, or are prepared for motherhood when they get pregnant, which could give them and their future child negative futures. The biggest issue I have with the debate is that fact that men are making the decisions regarding women’s health care. All the justices in the Roe v. Wade case were men, and while it did go in favor in the 1970’s, the supreme court left many rules surrounding abortion up to the states. Without clear cut rules, states continue to make abortions harder and harder for disadvantaged women to obtain one. The fact that men are trying to stop abortion, whether by their morals or not, they’re forcing women into motherhood which is unfair to women who made the mistake of getting pregnant before they were ready.