With the past few years of the Trump administration, America has seen a heighted political divide between those who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice. In January, I went to the Dallas Women’s March, and I got to witness firsthand hate and counter protests by pro-life and frankly, anti-women, groups. It was quite eye-opening to see so many people, women specifically, fight against equity and rights for healthcare.
After seeing the counter protests, it got me thinking about the pro-choice stance. Often times, it gets muddled under conservative rhetoric calling us baby murderers, when really, we just want the best options and opportunities available to women in America.
I think I can accurately say most pro-choice advocates are not fighting for every women to have an abortion. We don’t dream of one day having an abortion. To me, being and advocating for pro-choice ideas means that I want the option for safe abortions available to women, but I also want to introduce more things that would help reduce the need for abortions – without criminalizing women or doctors in the process.
Instead of penalizing and throwing out abortions all together, there’s a long list of things that could be created that would help reduce the need for abortions. Increased access to contraception and better comphrensive sex education would be a great place to start. The United States teen pregnancy and birth rate is significantly higher than many other developed countries. France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada range from 30 to 11 teen pregnancies for every 1000 girls aged 15 to 19. On the other hand, the United States is at about 72 girls per 1000. Providing comphresenzive sex education to young men and women would decrease the need for some abortions all together.
The huge gap between incomes in household also contributes to abortions in America. Providing better income equality and minimum wages would create a better space for families to decide if they are ready for or want a baby. Instead of fighting against minimum wage increases and healthcare accessibility, pro-life advocates should be leading the march for these things if they want to “save the unborn babies.”
I am by no way advocating in favor of getting rid of abortions; I think there should always be the options for safe ways to terminate a pregnancy – for whatever reason the women has. However, if these “pro-life” people want to truly lower abortions numbers, they shouldn’t criminalize it. Criminalization will only lead to more unsafe attempted abortions and a greater disparity women’s access to healthcare between social classes.
If you want to know more about women, abortions, and things related to the topic, check out the podcast: The Cut on Tuesdays. Specifically the episode titled “How To Do An Abortion.” The episode dives deep into what abortions looked like before the Roe V. Wade era and what the future for abortions, in America and around the world, looks to entail.