| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="SecondEssay" |
|---|
| |
<
< | Undue Burdens on Abortion | >
> | Why the right to terminate a pregnancy is so extensively disrespected when other rights are protected | | | By: Lauren Roemke | |
<
< | The Supreme Court has made it clear that women have a constitutional right to abortion, and that states can not pass laws that create an undue burden for women exercising that right (Planned Parenthood v. Casey). In an attempt to circumvent the constitution, anti-choice politicians in Texas passed a law known as HB2 in 2013. While the stated aim of HB2 was to “protect women’s health,” its restrictions effectively transformed legal abortion into a mere theoretical right in Texas (http://www.reproductiverights.org/case/whole-womans-health-v-hellerstedt). Two of the law’s most notable requirements are that doctors who provide abortion services must obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals and every health care facility offering abortion care must make costly changes to conform with the same building requirements as ambulatory surgical centers (ASC)(http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/what-happens-when-the-clinics-close/471969/). Supporters of HB2 cite botched abortions and reckless doctors as evidence of the need for these greater requirements. Opponents of the law argue that abortions are already very safe and the tales of botched abortions are an overblown propaganda tactic (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/what-happens-when-the-clinics-close/471969/). On March 2nd, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for the case Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerdstadt, which challenges the constitutionality of HB2. The Court’s decision will have widespread implications. According to the Guttmacher Institute, states have adopted 288 different abortion restrictions since the 2010 mid-term elections (https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2016/01/2015-year-end-state-policy-roundup?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Guttmacher+%28New+from+the+Guttmacher+Institute%29). At oral argument, Justice Kennedy, considered the crucial vote in the case, said, “The undue burden test is weighed against what the state’s interest is.” The weaker the state’s justification for the law, he suggested, the greater burden it imposes (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/us/politics/supreme-court-abortion-texas.html?_r=0). As explored below, these new requirements impose an undue burden because they are not only medically unnecessary, but also jeopardize women’s health. | >
> | Many of our class discussions implicated questions about one’s right to live and the extent to which others may alter this right. Is it morally or legally permissible to take another’s life due to necessity, end one’s own life when conditions no longer make life worth living, or end another’s life as a form of punishment? Questions surrounding life and death invoke fervent responses because they are central to the human experience and involve a range of religious, philosophical, cultural, and biological understandings. Nowhere are questions surrounding life and death more heated than in the topic of abortion. Just this past fall, a gunman attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic, killing three people. The battle mostly operates, however, within state legislatures, which seek to restrict a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy through increased requirements for patients and clinics. | | | | |
<
< |  | | | | |
>
> | An Unfortunate Outcome | | | | |
<
< | Medically Unnecessary | | | | |
<
< | The new requirements for abortion centers are medically unnecessary because abortion is already one of the safest medical procedures and the new requirements fail to provide additional benefits. Data do not support the state’s briefs that suggest abortion clinics are a lawless frontier in which reckless doctors operate on frightened young women and dump them in hospital ER’s if anything goes wrong (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/what-happens-when-the-clinics-close/471969/). Instead, abortion procedures have a mortality rate 14 times lower than that associated with childbirth (the likely outcome if a woman does not obtain an abortion) and less than half the mortality rate of a colonoscopy (a comparable outpatient procedure that is not subject to hospital admitting and building code requirements)( http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-01-29/roes-end/). In effect, the requirements unfairly single out women’s health care providers and serve to drive them out of practice. In addition to being medically unnecessary, the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetrician & Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Family Physicians wrote, “There is incontrovertible evidence that [the Hb2’s ASC and privileges requirements] are impeding women’s access to quality abortion care” (http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-01-29/roes-end/). | >
> | State attempts to chip away at a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy are unique; states do not similarly attack one’s right to freedom of speech or access to legal representation, for example. This is likely due to the fact that expressing one’s opinion or using taxpayer money for legal representation does not result in the extinguishment of life. Most people agree that life has an intrinsic, inviolable value, and believe that it is regrettable when life, once begun, ends prematurely (Dworkin, p.69). In the case of abortion, in order for a woman to exercise her right not to develop part of herself into a separate human being, then she unfortunately has to end the life of the fetus she carries within her (Tribe, p.114). Many abortion opponents argue that a fetus is a human life, or a person, beginning at the moment of conception, which raises the stakes of terminating a pregnancy. Opponents argue that the outcome of abortion, terminating a human life, clearly outweighs the mother’s right to decide what shall happen in and to her body, and that this calculus justifies the continued assault on women’s right to terminate a pregnancy. | | | | |
<
< | Jeopardizes Women’s Health | >
> | Does the outcome outweigh the woman’s right? | | | | |
<
< | HB2’s new requirements jeopardize women’s health by creating longer wait times, which increases the risk of complications from legal abortions and the number of self-induced abortions. About half of Texas’s abortion clinics closed when the admitting privileges requirement went into effect. If the final ASC provision of the law goes into effect, as few as 10 clinics, concentrated in five major metro cities, are expected to serve all 5.4 million reproductive age women in Texas (http://www.reproductiverights.org/case/whole-womans-health-v-hellerstedt). According to research by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TXPEP), wait times at clinics increased from five days or fewer to sometimes as much as 20 days after the first requirement went into effect. Planned Parenthood experienced a 660% increase in callers seeking to schedule an abortion appointment when the ASC rule temporarily went into effect in October 2014 (http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-01-29/roes-end/). Due to these delays, women have to get later term abortions, which have a higher risk of complications and are more expensive. Studies have shown that the number of second-trimester abortions have risen in Texas since the law went into effect (http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-01-29/roes-end/). The decreased number of clinics and increased cost of later term abortions are particularly significant given that more than 40% of women that receive abortions are poor and 61% already have at least one child (https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states). The strain of increased travel time and the cost of childcare, lodging, and time off work makes access to abortion procedures all the more infeasible. The decline in availability of legal abortions drives many women to perform self-induced abortions. Amy Miller recounts a phone call to her clinic. Temporarily closed, the clinic referred the caller to the nearest licensed facility, 250 miles away in San Antonio. The caller responded, “I cannot take that much time off work and afford childcare to travel to San Antonio... So how about I tell you what I have in my cupboards, under my sink, and in my medicine cabinet, and you tell me what to use and how to use it in order to do my own abortion” (https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states). According to studies by TXPEP self-induced abortions are more common in Texas than in other parts of the country (http://www.utexas.edu/cola/txpep/releases/self-induction-release.php). Reproductive health advocates warn that if the Supreme Court fails to block the final part of the law, the number of women who are forced to self-induce will inevitably rise. | >
> | However, even accepting the premise that a fetus is a human life does not necessarily result in the conclusion that women should not have the right to terminate a pregnancy. Indeed, there are instances where one is justified in taking another’s life, such as in self-defense. In her article, “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Jarvis Thomson invites the reader to imagine a scenario in which he wakes up and finds himself attached to a famous unconscious violinist. The violinist has a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers found that the reader alone has the right blood type to help. They therefore kidnapped him and plugged the violinist’s circulatory system into his, so that his kidneys can be used to extract poisons from the violinist’s blood as well as his own - to unplug the violinist would kill him. Is it morally incumbent on the reader to accede to this situation? Most would respond “no;” it would be kind to aid the violinist, but one is not required to do so. | | | | |
<
< |  | >
> | Opponents would argue that the violinist analogy is inapplicable to the abortion debate because the patient in the hypothetical did not volunteer for the operation that plugged the violinist into his kidneys. In the case of abortion, when a woman voluntarily engages in intercourse, knowing of the chance it will result in pregnancy, she volunteers, or consents, to having an unborn person use her body for food and shelter. The absurdity of this argument is illustrated by another hypothetical: if a woman opens a window to air a room, and a burglar climbs in, it would be unreasonable to say that she’s given him a right to the use of her house – she’s partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, knowing that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle (Thomson). In essence, just because a woman voluntarily engages in intercourse does not mean that she volunteers to an unborn person using her body for food and shelter. And similarly to the case of the violinist, although it may be kind to allow the life within her to continue, she is not obligated to. Therefore, even accepting the premise that human life begins at conception, an unborn person’s right to life is not necessarily stronger than the mother’s right to decide what happens in her body because she did not give the unborn person a right to use her body for food and shelter by voluntarily engaging in intercourse. | | | | |
<
< | Constitutional Rights | | | | |
<
< | Theoretical rights without practical availability are no rights at all. The constitutionally protected right to abortion isn’t meaningful if there isn’t access to clinics. HB2 and similar laws around the country work to eliminate access to safe abortions. In terms of the significance of Whole Woman’s Health, lead attorney Stephanie Toti summarizes, “The justices will determine whether women will continue to have access to safe and legal abortion or whether we’re going to turn the clock back 40 years and force more women to take matters into their own hands” (http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-01-29/roes-end/). Although abortion continues to be a divisive issue, effectively eliminating a previously constitutionally protected right should give all Americans cause for concern. | >
> | Conclusion | | | | |
<
< | To Find Out More:
| >
> | States continue to try to restrict a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy because, unlike cases involving freedom of speech or legal representation, they see a compelling, if not the most compelling, reason for doing so: to protect human life. Given that many of these opponents view human life as beginning at the moment of conception, it is at first understandable why they seek to prohibit abortion, even in the early stages of fetal development. However, as the above hypotheticals illustrate, even accepting the premise that human life begins at conception does not determine that women are obligated to remain pregnant. In Abortion, Tribe explains that ultimately, the picture must include both the interest of the fetus and the interest of the pregnant woman. Keeping in mind both of these interests, Casey drew the line at fetal viability in determining when it would and would not be appropriate for women to terminate a pregnancy. Will we continue to allow states to try to redraw this line in a way that eclipses the interest of the woman? | | | | |
<
< |
Once again, you make it difficult to read the text by inserting URLs the reader's eye must skip around, instead of making links, the way the Web is supposed to work. Writing for the Web is a 21st century skill, and you need to acquire it confidently. | | | | |
<
< | The substance is also familiar in way: it's the Mother Jones view of the issue. Taking their graphics to illustrate their points is fair, I suppose, although the sourcing could be more evident than a chopped-off watermark. It might be useful, in legal writing, to source a little more deeply than newspapers and magazines. | >
> |
- Dworkin, Ronald (1993). Life’s Dominion. New York: Vintage Books.
- Thomson, Judith Jarvis (1971). “A Defense of Abortion.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 1(1).
- Tribe, Laurence H. (1991). Abortion, The Clash of Absolutes. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
| | | | |
<
< | But the route to substantive improvement is to add some thinking of
your own. The partisan balance of state legislatures accounts for
the quantity of recent examples of the peculiar status of the
abortion right, which is supposedly universal and really particular
to a few states and counties in the US, but we have been in the same
analytic condition since the decision in
Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980). | | | | |
<
< | What the Mother Jones view can't include is precisely what you ought to write: an essay explaining why the right to terminate a pregnancy is so extensively and effectively disrespected when the First Amendment rights to free speech and exercise of religion, or the right to have a lawyer appointed at public expense in all serious criminal prosecutions, are uniformly protected throughout the country. If you start from the opinions in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), itself, and then consider the resulting judicial and political outcomes, you can write succinctly and effectively an account of the difficulty securing a "freedom to" in a system of rights about "freedom from." Joined to the analysis offered by Larry Tribe you could go here from reproducing journalism to doing creative legal thinking.
| | |
\ No newline at end of file | |
>
> |
|
|