The War On Women s Health - 1405 Words

Hannah Shotwell Professor T. Seamus O’Sullivan PSCI 1110-52 Due December 2, 2015 The War on Women’s Health One of the United States’ core values is the right to privacy, a right evidenced in the constitution’s fourteenth amendment. This amendment, of course, is the one cited in cases of women’s reproductive health rights, an issue as contentious as ever in the 21st century. With the federal government working seemingly endlessly to revert fifty-year-old decisions pertaining to women’s health rights, one must ask themselves if such undermining of Supreme Court decisions is constitutional, and why it is so important to men in Congress to legislate women’s bodies. With half a century of feminist progress behind us, one would think the†¦show more content†¦Anti-choice legislation stems from the primarily anti-choice makeup of the United States legislature (twenty-eight state governors, fifty-four senators, and two hundred sixty-four house representatives define themselves as anti-choice, as of De cember 6, 2014) (Who Decides?). Twenty-seven anti-choice laws were enacted in 2010 alone, bringing the United States to a cumulative eight hundred thirty-five anti-choice measures statewide (Who Decides?). The state legislature’s over one thousand bills restricting women’s right to legal abortion services in 2011 alone and Congress’ at least eight votes against women in 2012 (Jones) are just further examples of anti-women, anti-choice legislation being enacted in Washington. In fact, Congress wasted no time on its anti-abortion agenda in 2015, introducing measures to ban abortions after 20-weeks on its very first day back in session in the New Year (Culp-Ressler). This measure is unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade, full stop, however, the unconstitutionality of this proposal means nothing to anti-choice legislators. The fact of the matter is that this anti-choice legislation isn’t evidenced in scattered instances across decades, it’s constantly ha ppening. Anti-choice members of the House at the last minute pushed to vote on H.R. 7 in January of 2015 on the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade and just weeks after multiple abortion restrictions were introduced. H.R. 7, called the â€Å"No Taxpayer Funding