Potential overturn obstructs equality

This Thursday marked the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s monumental Roe v. Wade decision. The 1973 decision guarantees a woman’s right to abortion until fetus viability, but that didn’t stop the Arizona Rep. Trent Franks from proposing abortion legislation. Though doctors typically consider a fetus viable after 24 weeks, Franks introduced the Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 week of pregnancy — the point at which, according to the Wall Street Journal, a fetus can supposedly feel pain. If its unwieldy name wasn’t enough, the bill was scheduled by the Republican House of Representatives for voting on Thursday in an aggressive proclamation of GOP values.

Ruthy Sarwal | Daily Trojan

As it turned out, Republican leaders decided to shelf the bill last minute, due in part to the legal grey area surrounding rape and incest. The bill would have allowed abortions after 20 weeks in the case of victims who report sexual abuse to the police, which raises several major issues. For one, the Rape, Incest & Abuse National Network estimates that 68 percent of sexual assault cases are not reported. The exemption of minors who have experienced incest was equally problematic, as Pennsylvania Rep. Charles Dent pointed out in a recent statement, “incest is incest,” regardless of age.

These miscalculations were enough to divide the image-conscious GOP, who cannot afford to alienate female voters so close to the 2016 presidential election, though the bill was unlikely to pass in the first place. A recent White House statement called the Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act “an assault on a woman’s right to choose.” but the gesture of planning the vote for the anniversary of Roe v. Wade is disturbing. We cannot pretend that women are treated as first-class citizens when abortion restrictions prevail and a woman’s right to choose remains in constant argument. GOP-proposed legislation and the words of conservative activists paint women who seek abortion as liars who murder for the sake of convenience. In order for women to attain equality, people need to raise awareness of the many reasons women choose, and deserve to choose abortion.

For one thing, abortion needs to be considered with context. There is an infinite number of reasons for a woman to choose abortion — expediting a guaranteed stillbirth, preventing parental abuse, pursuing higher education. As Jessica Valenti points out in an article for the Guardian, “The ability to control if and when we parent determines how we participate in society.” It is certainly possible to juggle parenting with a career, but it remains a woman’s right to decide whether or not she’s ready to do so. Valenti cites author Katha Pollitt to introduce the notion that abortion is actually a “public good.” Indeed, “society benefits when women can commit to education and work and dreams without having at the back of her mind that maybe it’s all provisional, because at any moment an accidental pregnancy could derail them for life.” For this reason, abortion should be legalized; it is an essential part of equality.

It is every woman’s right to put her one, existing life before that of an unborn child. Even if a woman decides that abortion violates her personal beliefs, it is no excuse to shame those who cannot afford to put their lives on the line for unwanted pregnancies. Indeed, the exemption requirements of the Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act perpetuate the notion that women lie about rape to benefit themselves. By requiring that abortions after 20 weeks have a previous police report to back them up, the bill touched on the persisting misconception that many rape claims are illegitimate. This implicit accusation convinced several House Republicans to withdraw their support from the bill, even though Franks insisted that it is not women whom he mistrusts but “unscrupulous abortion providers.” Nevertheless, women like Valenti remain unconvinced. Valenti describes the bill before she retorts that “Republicans know just how much women love to lie about rape and incest to get those sweet, sweet abortions!” She also raises another crucial point about the bill’s treatment of rape, noting that “during a time when sexual assault and the difficulty of reporting it is a central part of the national conversation, forcing women and girls to go to the police before they can access abortion makes Republicans seem even more out of touch with the issues women face than usual.”

Essentially, the Pain-Capable Unborn Protection Act would undo more than a Supreme Court decision; it would mean taking a step backward in the national effort to address sexual assault and half a century backward in the battle for women’s rights. While the bill has been postponed for the time being, it is evident that we have quite a few obstacles ahead of us before we can declare the United States a free nation. Women should not be enslaved to a fetus. Women are people first,  and incubators second — and whether or not a woman chooses to have children. It is nobody else’s business.

Jennifer Frazin is a sophomore majoring in English and theatre. Her column, “Not That Kind of Girl,” runs Wednesdays.