For centuries, lawmakers have been pushing their personal beliefs onto women’s bodies, causing laws to be made to prevent women from accessing safe and legal abortion for the sake of their health. These draconian laws need to be abolished; upholding abortion laws created over 100 years ago is a hindrance to the rights of women today.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled April 9 to enforce an antiquated Civil War-era law dating back to 1864 that bans abortion in all cases except those where the mother’s life is in danger. This law allows doctors and healthcare professionals to be prosecuted if they assist in providing abortion care. These professionals are at risk of spending two-five years in state prison.
Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion rights have been at risk with 21 states banning or restricting abortion. Of these states, 14 have a total ban on abortion, according to The New York Times.
Abortion access is vital when it comes to women’s healthcare. Abortion is not a form of birth control. It is a medical procedure that is used to save the lives of women in medical emergencies, when they cannot emotionally handle a pregnancy, if they have been sexually assaulted or if they simply do not wish to continue with their pregnancy. Some instances where abortion is medically necessary include but are not limited to ectopic pregnancies, heart problems due to the pregnancy, placental abruptions, severe preeclampsia and fetal abnormalities.
These medical emergencies compromise the life of the woman, and if not treated can lead to serious health complications or even death. Women who are experiencing a miscarriage may be prescribed abortion pills to medically manage the miscarriage. These pills are also used to manage second and third-trimester fetuses that have already died in utero.
These bans and restrictions don’t just take away a woman’s right to choose, they take away a woman’s right to save her own life in medical emergencies, which will inevitably lead to the death of women.
Bringing back a law that dates back to before the abolition of slavery is setting a precedent to lawmakers nationwide that we don’t have to look toward the future of the country, but rather we can uphold harmful laws that continue to push oppressive ideals.
If our country continues to uphold over 100-year-old laws on abortion, then nothing is preventing our nation from upholding other oppressive laws that will further harm more groups of individuals.
How can we ensure the protection of LGBTQ individuals and people of color when our lawmakers are comfortable supporting laws from a time when these marginalized groups were being imprisoned and enslaved?
We cannot compare the healthcare options of today to those of 1864. In 1864, the first municipal hospital was established in the United States, and physicians were not required to attend medical school; many of them only received their training from apprenticeships with no prior training.
Abortions were not safe in 1864 like they are now, so the concerns of those in the 1800s are extremely different from the concerns that those in the pro-life movement have expressed. The law was put in place to push women to fulfill their maternal obligation, a belief expressed by Dr. Horatio Storer in 1857.
Storer also believed that the “wrong Americans” were reproducing when referring to Black people in the 1800s, and that not enough white people were having children since they were the ones having the abortions.
Not only does the resurgence of this law continue to harm women and the autonomy they deserve to have over their own bodies, but it pushes racist ideals upheld by physicians who carried the beliefs that many did in that era.
The knowledge of citizens and physicians of the 1800s was extremely limited compared to what we know today. Across the board, healthcare has changed exponentially so we cannot expect the laws surrounding our healthcare to stay the same. We need to adapt and continue to recognize the various needs of women nationwide.
When looking at the history of our country, we have to recognize the harmful and oppressive past that we started with. This history is something that we have been working hard to heal from. However, this is now a step backward.
It is impossible to grow and change when you are stuck in the past. If our nation wants to avoid repeating the dangerous history we have, we also have to avoid reinstating the very laws that endorsed that history.
The rights of women and the debate on whether or not women deserve the right to choose what happens with their own bodies is not a debate that will end anytime soon, but the only way to look toward the future and maintain hope for positive change is to throw out the archaic laws of the past.
Susan Provencher • Apr 20, 2024 at 9:15 am
Well done Brooklyn!