Abortion

More than 40 years since Roe v. Wade, and we are still fighting for the right of women to make their own reproductive decisions. People are screaming too much government, except when it comes to women’s issues, then, let’s pass another law.  Women have fought for far too long for the right to control their own bodies.

Until the late 1800’s women healers provided abortions and trained other women to provide them. There may be several reasons why laws were made to try to stop abortion. Male doctors wanted to eliminate women healers and midwives, who provide a great deal of the care of women. The declining birth rate among whites, and the urging of white women to reproduce may have had some bearing on the decision.

For sometime after it became illegal, abortionists continued to practice and juries refused to convict them. In 1902 the editors of the Journal of American Medical Association endorse a policy of denying a woman, suffering abortion complications, medical care until she confessed and named all persons involved in her abortion and the name of the man who got her pregnant. During the 1920’s approx. 15,000 women died each year from abortions.

Now, women are still struggling for the right to have a legal medical procedure, and time after time, for many women, it is made difficult, if not impossible. Where is the privacy? Women should have the right to medical care without government, other people’s religions, or anything, getting in the way. What a woman decides, and believe me it is not an easy decision, should be a private medical matter between her and her doctor, not a crime.