It would seem to any reasonable person watching the drama unfold
in the 2012 Presidential race that efforts in our Nation would involve
economics, trade and green, sustainable energy initiatives but instead, the
focus has been on abortion and contraceptives. Acting as if the negation of our
right to privacy will fix all of
In listening to the rhetoric of late against these freedoms, one
would be led to believe this issue had never been decided upon in the past. As
would seem typical of late in
On June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court ruled in Griswold
v. Connecticut that a "right to privacy" can be found within
the U.S. Constitution which includes the use of contraception by married
couples. This decision paved the way for Eisenstadt
v. Baird in 1972, which extended the right to single people. Since the Griswold
decision, many rights to choice have emanated from these privacy decisions,
including the right to abortion including Roe vs. Wade in 1973. More
recently, in the 2003 decision Lawrence
v. Texas , the Supreme Court relied upon it to extend privacy rights to
gay and lesbians within their homes.
In their continued resistance of decisions by the Supreme Court
and push for autonomy, many States have begun to deny their obligation to
protect citizen's rights to privacy and by proxy, choice by enacting tougher,
anti-abortion laws. Although many States do not directly negate the Court's
decision, they have engineered tactics to make the procedure unconscionable or
demeaning for the women involved and redefining abortion to involve even
contraceptive products.
The recent decision by the Virginia's House of Delegates and
Senate would require a woman to view an ultrasound of the fetus 24 hours before
the procedure and demands that the physician performing it to show the results
to the patient. Similarly in
As Dahlia Lithwick states ,
"The whole point of the new abortion bans is to force the Supreme Court to
reverse Roe v. Wade. It's unconstitutional to place an "undue burden"
on a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy, although it's anyone's guess
what, precisely, that means. One would be inclined to suspect, however, that
unwanted penetration with a medical device violates either the undue burden
test or the right to bodily autonomy. But that's the other catch in this bill.
Proponents seem to be of the view that once a woman has allowed a man to
penetrate her body once, her right to bodily autonomy has ended."
These laws are not only intrusive, they add to the
war against women and their rights in this nation by some in the radical
political fringes. If any evidence need be viewed to back up this claim, all
one has to do is look at the recent Congressional review board on the issue of
contraception and the Healthcare Reform Act on Capitol Hill, recently. The
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform assembled a panel chaired by
a male and consisted of eight men who felt personally persecuted by the
requirement. Not
a single woman was allowed to participate .
How long are us Americans going to allow these emerging Theocrats
(mostly men) to determine our Nation's future and slowly negate the right of
women to choose for themselves on abortion and birth control? It is reasonable
to believe that partial birth abortions or abortifacients as an alternative
form of birth control is largely viewed as a selfish and irresponsible act but
to take that to the personal druthers of terming contraception as a form of
abortion and penalizing any who use it, is going off the edge of that reason
especially when women are not included as an integral part of the discussion.
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