Pro
Maggie Monson, Viewpoint Writer
In 2011, the Mississippi legislature attempted to pass an amendment that would have, in effect, made abortion illegal. Abortion, however, should be a woman’s choice, not the law’s.
The Personhood Amendment declared that a fertilized egg is a person from the moment of conception, according to a November 2011 article from the Washington Post. The most prominent debate over abortion is when an egg truly becomes a baby, and the Personhood Amendment would have legally answered that question. When so many opinions exist on the matter, the law should not be able to make that decision. Every woman should decide what is best for her and she should legally be able to make her choices accordingly.
While the Personhood Amendment failed in the ballot box, its supporters plan to push similar amendments on the ballots in Ohio, South Dakota, and Florida in 2012, according to a November article in The Week. Voters need to continue to reject these amendments because abortion is about women.
The Personhood Amendment would have prevented abortions that some women find necessary. For example, Amber Smith*, an LZHS student, felt that abortion was her only choice.
“I was 16 when I had an abortion… I was so young there wasn’t any other choice in my mind,” Smith said. “I couldn’t imagine going through nine months of high school being pregnant, and beyond that having a child so young. I didn’t have a job, I couldn’t have supported [a baby], I didn’t want to be a burden to my family, and I didn’t want to lose my friends.”
Smith’s decision to terminate her pregnancy was one that was difficult for her to make, she said, but both she and the father “knew that [a baby] would ruin our lives.”
Women like Smith deserve the right to have a say about what happens to their bodies.
“I feel like people who try to pass amendments about abortion have never been pregnant. They’ve never been in that situation,” Smith said. “They don’t understand.”
While many high school pregnancies are avoidable, for some victims of rape and incest, pregnancy is forced on them. If the Personhood Amendment passed, a woman would have to carry a baby that was the result of a violent and horrific violation of her body. Having a constant reminder of such an experience is not fair to the woman, and she should have the right to take back the control that was stolen from her.
Women received the right to make decisions concerning their bodies in 1972 in the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. The court ruling made all state laws limiting a woman’s access to abortions in the first trimester of their pregnancy illegal, according to http://law.cornell.edu. Activists are using the Personhood Amendment to get around the wording of Roe v. Wade by only indirectly outlawing abortion. The amendment should not be allowed to happen in any state because, according to Roe v. Wade, limiting access to an abortion is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. Roe v. Wade improved women’s rights and the ruling made should not be reversed or manipulated.
The Personhood Amendment also has effects beyond the conventional idea of abortion. The law would hurt in-vitro fertilization, a procedure that helps couples become pregnant if they cannot conceive naturally. Many offices store hundreds of a woman’s fertilized eggs until one of them, upon placement in the uterus, develops into a pregnancy. The problem then becomes what to do with any leftover eggs.
According to the Personhood Amendment, all fertilized eggs would be considered ‘people’ and therefore could not legally be destroyed. Furthermore, if the pregnancy fails once the egg is placed in the uterus, doctors could be accused of murdering that ‘person.’ In-vitro clinics would have to close their doors for fear of prosecution, taking away the last chance many women have for creating a family. Even though supporters intended the amendment to make abortion illegal, the vague wording will end up hurting some women’s chances at a family.
The amendment is detrimental to women’s choices, whether the choice is in-vitro fertilization or abortion. Anti-abortion activists should not be pushing for this amendment because of this. Instead, they should be pushing for more education and more access to free birth control. Between 2000 and 2008, abortion rates in the United States dropped 8 percent. However, the rate of abortion rose 18 percent among women below the poverty line, according to a May 2011 article on http://abcnews.com, and 42 percent of reported abortions in 2008 were women who are below the poverty line. Increasing women’s access to free birth control can help decrease the rate of abortion, while still allowing women control over their bodies.
If Smith lived in a state where a law similar to the Personhood Amendment had been passed, she fears that she would not have been able to graduate with her class. She would not be able to go away to college as she plans to do, and her life would have been beyond her control. Smith had to choose what was best for her.
Not every woman agrees with abortion. However, every woman deserves the right to choose what is best for her body based on her own opinions. An amendment should not make the decision on such a sensitive topic as abortion.
*Name changed to protect the source
Con
Krystyna Keena, News Editor
The Mississippi Personhood Amendment defined the term ‘person’ as including “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.” Though the votes did not ultimately approve the law, this amendment should have been passed to effectively outlaw abortion in the state.
Since 1973 and the Roe vs. Wade court case dealing with abortion, over 53 million pre-born lives have been ended in an abortion clinic, according to http://whyprolife.com. One fourth of the potential new population dies each year because someone else decided their fate. Outlawing abortion even in one state has the potential to save hundreds of preborn lives.
Mary Anne Keena, former LZ resident, is one such woman who faced the choice of whether or not to follow through with her pregnancy. When she discovered she was pregnant at 23, she said there was no doubt that the timing of the pregnancy was inconvenient and unexpected.
“I didn’t have a job, I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, so it was the most horrible time to have a baby,” Keena said. “And also, I had only recently stopped using drugs and alcohol, so looking back, I totally wasn’t ready.”
Keena also faced strong opposition from the child’s father during the first couple months of her pregnancy.
“When I was only a month pregnant, [the father] kicked me out of the house for no reason. He just went kind of insane and one day was like, ‘Hey, get out. Get an abortion.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And I knew that he didn’t mean it, but it was hard to hear,” Keena said.
Despite the opposition she faced, Keena said she never had a doubt about following through with the pregnancy. She agrees with the goals of the Personhood Amendment, and said especially after her experience, she believes abortion is not the answer, even for high school age girls.
Many young women argue, however, that they have no other option upon discovering they are pregnant; they feel pressure from society and shame in being pregnant at a young age. The pressures on girls in this situation, especially those still in high school, are unfathomable to many who have not gone through the experience. These young women face financial trials, social struggles, and significant changes to their plans for their futures.
But the struggles that come with being a teen mother are no reason to take away the life of another human being. In today’s society, there are also more alternatives to having an abortion that either do not involve raising the child, or offer help to young mothers. Keena said she has had personal experience and success with the many government programs that offer aid to single moms.
“There’s so many other options, you don’t have to have an abortion. You don’t ever have to worry because there are government agencies that will help you out. There are a lot of resources,” Keena said. “I think a lot of girls are having these abortions and they don’t realize the depth of what they’re doing. It’s harmful to their bodies, people live with the guilt for the rest of their lives, and you could give the baby up for adoption and make some people really, really happy.”
This concept applies to victims of sexual abuse who become pregnant, as well. The experience of rape or unwanted sexual abuse can be traumatizing, but aborting the resulting child will not undo the abuse. Adoption is an alternative that allows the child to live, but does not give its mother a visual reminder each day of her attacker. And while the pregnancy does create a visual reminder of the traumatic experience for nine months, it does not mean a person should be denied the opportunity to live.
Life begins at fertilization – the baby’s heart starts beating after just 22 days, according to the NRLC database. And despite the many experiments over the years, scientists have never actually managed to create new life; the sole form of creating a person remains the process of fertilization. Though the person is merely a mass of cells without a face, it does not mean they are without rights and personhood. It merely means they require someone else to stand out and protect their rights as a human being.
Though the amendment did not pass in Mississippi, other states should take the initiative to work towards future laws that would define Personhood at its true beginning: fertilization. Though pregnancy at a young age comes with hardships, there are answers, such as adoption, that do not deny the life of another human being.
Sidebar: Partial Birth Abortion
Both writers agree that partial birth abortion is morally wrong and agree with the law that made it illegal.
The Supreme Court legally defined partial birth abortion as any abortion in which the child is delivered “past the [baby’s] navel . . . outside the body of the mother,” or “in the case of head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother.”
In other words, doctors induce delivery between five and six months into the pregnancy and delivers the baby feet first until only the head is left inside the cervix. The doctor then uses a long surgical tool to puncture the base of the baby’s skull, inserts a tube into the incision, and uses a suction machine to suck out the child’s brains. Once the brains are gone, the skull collapses and the doctor pulls out the rest of the fetus.
The writers feel that women who have endured the pregnancy for that length of time should follow through the full term, have the baby, and give it up for adoption if they do not wish to have a child.
In 2003, President Bush signed a ban on partial birth abortion into law, making any partial birth abortion illegal, except in cases where the mother’s life was in danger as a result of the fetus.