The battle between the pro-choice and the pro-life lobbies in the US continues to rage; with the pro-life lobby, also known as the anti-abortion movement having recently won a significant victory. Those who oppose abortions do so for a range of reasons -from the moral to the religious to the humanitarian, and a new Iowa Abortion Bill seems to bring them several steps closer to their ultimate aim to outlaw abortions altogether.
The Iowa statehouse just fast tracked a bill that seeks to ban abortions at a very early stage of pregnancy; or as soon as the fetal heartbeat is detected. This is in line with the stated anti-abortion stance of the conservative Republican Party who controls the state legislature and is seen as a major achievement.
This bill effectively outlaws pregnancies that have progressed beyond 6 weeks; since in most cases, a fetal heartbeat can be detected at about six weeks’ gestation. At this stage, many women may not even have discovered that they are pregnant; so effectively, such legislation simply takes away their right to make their own decision in the matter.
The bill will now be presented before Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds who has a stated anti-abortion stance; even though she has not yet indicated whether she is in favour of this particular piece of legislation. The legislation is one of the strictest ever abortion bills and is most likely to be challenged as unconstitutional in court, feel commentators.
Whatever may be a person’s moral or religious justification for preventing abortions, the fact is that outlawing abortions is yet another way to control women, their bodies and their reproductive rights. It is yet another way to impose the will of others and the might of the state in situations that rightly can and should only be under the private purview of a woman herself.
There are wide-ranging consequences of an unplanned pregnancy: emotional, economic, educational, social, health outcomes and many more. No one apart from the woman herself has to contend with the consequences of carrying a pregnancy to term; yet there is still a largely-held view that others have the right to make a decision for the woman and her life and her future.
If the bill is made into law, this effectively strips a woman off her agency, her privacy and her right to make her own decisions. It is bizarre that so many people think it’s OK to make a woman's medical choices for her under the guise of a humanitarian stance. What such a bill also does is, it undermines a woman’s ability to make her own decisions and somehow presents her as unfit to make up her own mind as to her best choices.
Anti-abortion laws are by definition anti-women. Not only do they control women’s choices and bodies, they presume to determine her future and decide about her health. It is well-established that legally carried out abortions are safer than childbirth. It is also well-established that by denying women access to safe abortion, a woman's life and health are further imperiled. So the view that seeks to explain away an anti-abortion stance based on the stated desire not to endanger a woman's health, is quite simply hypocritical and reeks of double standards.
The bill brings the anti abortion lobby several steps closer to their stated goal of having the landmark Roe v Wade judgement (which upheld the woman's right to decide about abortion) stuck down. Certainly with Republicans being in control of the government this does not seem impossible. However, champions of women's rights and their reproductive rights can take heart from the fact that when similar laws were sought to be passed by states such as Arkansas and North Dakota, they were struck down as unconstitutional. It is likely that the Iowa abortion bill will meet the same fate.
The fact remains however; that those who would control a woman, her choices and her rights, continue to chip away at these in some or other insidious form. Ultimately what is most bizarre is that people, especially women, find political or religious or moral justification in preventing women's access to health and reproductive care; justification in reversing the gains made and regressing to dark, oppressive, unenlightened bygone times.
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