In our national anthem the United States is referred to as the land of the free, but is America truly the land of the free? We must face the harsh reality that our nation has never been truly free for all of her people. Whether it be because of race, religion, ethnicity or any other aspect of another’s life that we can see as different from our own, America has never truly lived up to its promise of all people being equal. The restrictions imposed by legislators in state and federal governments, limiting a woman’s bodily autonomy is no different and to put it simply, wrong.
On June 24, 2022 the United States Supreme Court overturned the landmark case Roe V. Wade which established the right for a woman to have an abortion in the United States. Since then a litany of states have taken it upon themselves to decide what a woman should do with her body. The United States Supreme Court opened the floodgates for conservative politicians and activists to control what women can and can not do with their own bodies. In 14 states there is a near total ban on abortion. In six more states there is a ban on abortion within six to 18 weeks of pregnancy.
Arizona was recently in the national spotlight because the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an abortion ban in the state that had been on the books since 1864 was indeed enforceable. Let’s take a look at what was happening in 1864, shall we? Our nation was midway through a civil war. It was a year after Abraham Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation. It wouldn’t be for another 100 years before the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. Women wouldn’t be given the constitutional right to vote for another 56 years, and women wouldn’t be allowed to independently obtain their own credit cards for another 110 years. It would be 39 years until the first Ford automobile rolled off the assembly line. And these great 50 states that we know today, were only 36.
Needless to say we have come a long way since 1864. What is most troubling about this is that if Arizona had used this archaic law the results would be catastrophic: the law, “banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, except to save a mother’s life, and threatened providers with two to five year prison sentences.”
Luckily for the great state of Arizona, Governor Katie Hobbs (D) and Attorney General of Arizona Kris Mayes (D), both refused to enforce the law. In early May, Governor Hobbs signed a bill that narrowly made it through the Republican controlled Arizona legislature that repealed the law. Yet, if the United States Supreme Court had upheld almost 50 years of historical precedent and supported Roe v. Wade, which most of the Justices on the bench said they would during their confirmation hearings, then this attack on the rights of women could have been avoided completely.
The blatant hypocrisy of the Republican Party, the party most closely associated with anti-abortion sentiment, is that limiting a woman’s right to choose is not exactly consistent with their philosophy. The Republican Party, the party of small government, also wants to be the government that makes medical decisions for 50 percent of the country. I hate to break it to the GOP, but a hospital room is far too small to fit every state and federal government official anywhere.
I also find it ironic that many Republicans identify as “pro-life” when in fact they oppose affordable healthcare for all, universal pre-K, welfare in general, a higher minimum wage, and just recently 14 states controlled by the Republican Party refused federal funding for students who can’t afford food to receive lunch over the summer.
I think journalist Roland Martin said it best when he said, “So if you are pro-life, be pro-life from the womb to the tomb, but not just in the womb.”
We have seen time and time again in ruby red states like Ohio, Kansas, Montana and Kentucky. Voters have decided time and time again to keep abortion legal in their states.
You may not agree with the morality of abortion, whether that comes from a religious belief, a personal opinion, or a political opinion. But we must remember the importance of the separation of church and state in our country. I myself do not personally agree with abortion, but the whole point is that when it comes to a woman deciding what is the right decision for her, the only people who should be involved in that decision are the woman, her doctor and, if she chooses, her significant other.
