Your Turn Letters to the Editor

Women’s rights are human rights

Last week South Dakotans voted a resounding “no” on a ballot measure that would have effectively eliminated abortion services in their state. The measure was defeated by a 56 percent vote against it, and even predominantly Catholic counties voted “no” on the measure. The proposed ban, which was passed by the Republican state Legislature and signed into law by the Republican governor, provided no exceptions for victims of rape and incest and no exceptions for the health of a woman. A woman taking essential medications for heart disease or undergoing chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer would have no options to continue doing so if she became pregnant because they could compromise her health and that of the developing pregnancy. Furthermore if the ban passed, South Dakota taxpayers would have been required to pay expensive attorney fees, upward of close to a million dollars, while it was being challenged in court as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The right-wing fundamentalists that framed this ban were making a direct challenge to overturn Roe v. Wade. But even more interesting is that nearly 20 other states, including Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, have had similar legislation introduced in recent years, yet, ideologically conservative interest groups specifically chose to funnel millions of dollars with a direct challenge in South Dakota. Geographically, South Dakota is the 16th largest state covering 75,885 square miles, but it is one of the least populated with less than a million citizens. It is so sparsely populated that it garners only one representative out of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Abortion is already rare in South Dakota, making it second to last in overall abortions and third from the bottom in abortions per capita in the U.S. There is only one clinic in the entire state that performs abortions, and it does so only one day a week by flying in a physician from Minnesota.

Ironically, the day after victory in South Dakota, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments on Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood over the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003. The Bush Administration brought the current case to the court after federal appeals courts in New York, Nebraska and California declared the ban unconstitutional. Also on Wednesday, 52 members of Congress who oppose the federal ban submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court saying that Congress’ investigation of medical data was results-driven.

“Partial-birth abortion” is a political term coined by anti-choice strategists; it is not a term used in any medical text. The act eliminates a medical procedure known as intact dilation and evacuation or dilation and extraction and is so vague that it would affect many second-trimester abortions. It also lacks an exception for the pregnant woman’s health. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists state the banned procedure has safety advantages, “particularly for women with serious medical conditions; it can avert massive hemorrhaging, serious infection and subsequent infertility.” The Supreme Court previously addressed the question of this type of abortion ban in 2000 – in a Nebraska case – and ruled that such bans must offer an exception to protect the health – not just the life – of the woman.

Ilene Jaroslaw, a 43-year-old New York City lawyer, underwent the abortion procedure before it was banned in May 2003. She had learned that the fetus she had been carrying for four months had a fatal spinal cord and brain defect and that it would not survive for long after birth. Because she wanted another child her physician recommended an abortion procedure that would do as little damage to her uterus as possible. She would have been prevented from making this choice had the abortion ban been in place. There are countless other women and situations in which this choice is desperately needed. How many of their stories must be publicly detailed before the assault on women’s reproductive health and reproductive rights ends? Not to mention, that childbirth is still eight times more fatal than abortion. When will the ideologically conservative follow their own creed and “judge not”? When will the most personal of decisions be considered as part of the right to self-determination, a belief this country was founded upon? When will the most personal of decisions stop being politicized and remain within the confines of discussion between a woman and her physician? There should be no need for exceptions because there should be no bans, period!

– Sara Duke
Founder and president, VCU Women’s Leadership Forum
wlf@vcu.edu