

 The United States has long been viewed as being one of the greatest, if not the greatest, country in the world. People from various countries around the world migrate to this country on a continuous basis with the hopes of having access to freedoms such as speech and the press that are inscribed in the United States’ Constitution and define this country as a democracy. However, in recent years, especially after the conclusion of Barack Obama’s eight-year presidency, the United States’ role as a country that promises freedom and endless opportunities for its citizens is being threatened as the wants of American citizens are beginning to become overlooked. The voices of women all across the nation are being forgotten with the recent election of Donald Trump to the United States presidency in January of 2016. The issue of abortion, which at one time was seemingly resolved with court cases such as Roe vs. Wade in 1973 and the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by former President George W. Bush in 2002, all of which gave women the right to choose, is once again being highly debated as the result of this new President. President Trump’s proposed plan to defund critical programs such as Planned Parenthood, which do not solely perform abortions but also provide women with information on how to practice safe sex and offer contraception, is detrimental for all American women. It is evident now more than ever that there is little understanding by the American public that decisions that impact a woman’s body should be left up to her alone to decide, rather than male politicians, a misconception that is harming the female youth of this nation. If President Trump chooses to continue his pro-life stance on the issue of abortion, women in this nation will continue to feel as if their voice does not matter, but rather just solely their bodies. Therefore, if abortion does not remain legal in the United States, not only will a myriad of harmful consequences ensue as illegal underground abortions will begin to once again take place, but young women will begin to view themselves, and most importantly their bodies, in a negative way.

Politicians across the United States hold a multitude of personal opinions towards abortion, causing it to be a highly controversial topic in American politics. This also makes it a very biased discussion, which contributes to the delay in effective legislation that has occurred over the past decades. The Republican, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), Party of the United States adopts a largely pro-life stance towards this issue; they claim that abortion should not be legal, as a “unborn child, like any other individual in this country, has an individual right to life that should not be infringed upon by others” (republicanviews.org). They back up their claim by utilizing the Fourteenth Amendment in the Constitution; by doing so, they do not give funding to programs such as Planned Parenthood, which carry out abortions, as well as any other healthcare programs that provide support to abortion clinics. These views held by most Republicans cause hindrance in not only the progression of effective legislation regarding abortion, but also can cause members of the American public, in particular women, to feel as if they are being overlooked. Republican politicians vote against laws that legalize the practice of abortions for a varying number of reasons. In particular, many argue that allowing abortions to occur would go against the religion they believe in. A moral code would be violated, as abortions involve the killing of an unborn individual who does not yet have a voice and cannot stand up for themselves. The Republican party in the United States has, in many occasions, been dubbed as being “the preferred choice of the intensely religious” (Stebenne). Many of its members identify as being a part of the Christian religion, which has had a long history in American politics as protesting against legalizing abortion and gay marriage in the United States. These religious views felt by Republican politicians, which in turn influence the laws they choose to pass and the ones they choose to deny, cause a great level of bias to become a norm in American politics. What ever happened to the separation of church and state that Thomas Jefferson once spoke about? The First Amendment itself states that the United States government does not hold the power to construct laws that respect an establishment of religion of any kind. Therefore, choosing to abolish a woman’s access to abortion solely because this does not agree with their own religious views and preferences violates this entirely. If a woman wants an abortion for any reason, it is solely up to her to decide, rather than the decisions of a group of biased politicians. Solely to appease the Republican party he now leads, President Trump may choose to go against the legislation that has been a part of politics for years and make abortion no longer legal in the United States.

  Although a number of Republicans and some other politicians view legal abortion in the United States as being immoral and a shameful act, the conduction of illegal abortions that women who wish to terminate their pregnancy would be forced to seek would bear much more harmful consequences. In an uncovered testimony given by Dr. Michael Levi in 1974, he reveals that “19,830,000 women each year will suffer death and complications because of illegal abortions” (Vagianos). Although this testimony was given in 1974, deeming it outdated in today’s current discussion on abortion, the message derived from it still remains true and relevant when deciding whether abortion should be legal or illegal. In such an industrialized powerhouse of a country such as the United States, over 19 million women dying solely because they were denied access to healthcare they needed is hard for one to wrap their mind around. In a third world country, this rate of women dying a year would sadly not come as any surprise. But in the United States, this is both baffling and sad, causing it to be more imperative than ever to ensure that illegal abortions are not the sole outlet for women to resort to. This statistic was given several years ago; since the implementation of legal abortion in the United States, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that as of 2014, “the death rate from abortion is extremely low: 0.6 per 100,000 procedures” (ourbodiesourselves.org). Abortion is now deemed as being one of the most common and safest procedures in the United States. However, due to the sanctions that a number of states choose to enact, it is becoming harder to achieve an abortion; “as of 2015, conservative lawmakers considered nearly 400 bills to limit a woman’s access to legal abortion and passed 57 new restrictions. If these proposed bills were to go through, the alternative option would be much worse; underground, illegal abortions are risky, as they are at many times not performed by a certified doctor in a sanitary environment, as the medical licenses of doctors were once threatened to be taken away if they performed an abortion.  When a woman was once forced to undergo one, she suffered a number of complications. If President Trump chooses to listen to these conservative state lawmakers who are proposing these laws to hinder a woman’s access to an abortion clinic, the only option for woman will once again be a risky, underground abortion.

The attempts by conservative state lawmakers across the nation and more importantly, President Trump’s proposed agenda to add a number of limitations to a woman’s access to abortion has spurred a negative outlook on the role of women in American society, a view on women that has possibly been rooted in American society for a great number of years. The influence of American media on women is a strong one; strong enough that it has formulated the idea of an “ideal” body type that women should strive to emulate, as thin women with long legs and miniscule waists have dominated television shows and are included in notorious beauty pageants that are aired throughout the nation. This standard for beauty projected through the media has led to an immense number of women to resort to eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, as well as experience low self-esteem at a young age, primarily in their teenage years. Additionally, it has molded women into being viewed as a sexual object valued for her body rather than anything else.  The sexual objectification theory curated by Frederickson and Roberts “postulates that many women are sexually objectified and treated as an object to be valued for its use by others” (Szymanski). The others they constructed this theory about refer to American men, and the use they are discussing is for sexual purposes. Women are solely looked at for their bodies, rather than their level of intelligence or interests. This has spurred a long history of women having a negative outlook on their bodies, and has always correlated to a misconception that men always have the right to access a women’s body. This has sadly led to an immense amount of rape occurring in the United States, a crime that often either goes unreported as women is afraid to open up to anyone about it or the perpetrator is never sent off to jail. It has been found that “only 344 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to the police” (www.rainn.org).  This and a multitude of other factors has led to a woman becoming engrained with the thought that only their bodies are recognized and needed in society. In terms of the issue of abortion, this causes men to view a woman who chooses to undergo an abortion as being unfit to care for a child, an individual who sleeps around a lot, calling them a handful of derogatory, cruel words. However, in most cases, a woman seeks an abortion due to the fact that they were sexually assaulted, and bearing the child would be a painful reminder of an emotionally-scarring experience. A study conducted by the Guttmatcher Institute has found that a 48% of women choose to undergo an abortion because they “did not want to be a single mother” (Finer). Having a child comes with a number of responsibilities that a woman must face: it can interfere with their career and can cause them to struggle financially. If a woman is forced into an unwanted pregnancy and is not ready at the time to satisfactorily care for the child, rather than forcing the child into adoption and having them then be on a quest the rest of their lives to uncover who their birth parents are, abortion poses itself as the most reasonable outlet for women. It is time for American society to stop viewing women who choose to terminate their pregnancy as being a “slut” or “whore”, when this may be entirely out of their control and desire. A woman should not have to shamefully undergo an abortion because a man solely views her as an object that he can not only do anything he sexually desires with, but get away with without risking ample punishment for his actions. To the father of Brock Turner, a Stanford swimmer who raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and was sentenced to an underserving and simple sentence of only six months in prison, who claimed that his son was unjustly charged as this was “a steep price to pay for only 20 minutes of action” (Miller), how can you view the actions your son choose to take as being right? Why are woman punished for wanting an abortion, but men do not know how to respect a woman’s boundaries? All of these questions demanded not simply a better understanding by both men and women to respect each other’s bodies, but makes it more important than ever, as the rate of unpunished rape escalates in the United States, to ensure that abortion exists as an outlet for women so they have a choice.

 The argument regarding abortion has existed in the United States for a countless number of years, and sadly, if conservative and biased American politicians as well as the American public remain ignorant behind the reasoning why a woman chooses to undergo an abortion, this discussion will remain. Although abortion is currently legalized in the United States, threats from current conservative Republican president Donald Trump to cut funding to imperative abortion clinics such as Planned Parenthood, paired with the attempts by state lawmakers to limit a woman’s access to a clinic, could cause it to once again be illegal. However, illegal abortions pose a great risk of health concerns for women, as shown by statistics recorded in the past; millions of women have died due to suffering from complications as the result of having to seek an underground abortion performed in an unsafe environment by an unlicensed doctor. The United States, being the great nation that it is viewed as by individuals of other nations, cannot truly be deemed as being great if a woman does not have the full access to the health care that she desires. Furthermore, a nation cannot be great if a woman is shamed, looked down upon, and called a “slut” for choosing to undergo an abortion. Abortion should remain legalized in the United States, and be free of limitations. The United States’ lack of understanding that a woman alone solely owns the rights to her body, not the government, does not make this country great, and runs the risk of negatively impacting the susceptible female youth. 