Missouri Passes Legislation on Abortion
MARY WILSON OPINIONS EDITOR:
Why are abortion rights so important? Let me start out by saying that this is a sensitive, polarizing topic. Reproductive health, and abortion in particular, incites anger and passion like few other topics can. Politicians use inflammatory (often factually incorrect) language on the campaign trail and when advocating for the passage of reproductive health legislation. It seems like every day there’s a new piece of legislation restricting the right to abortion, which was declared a Constitutional right in 1973, in the now famous case Roe v. Wade. Recently, Missouri introduced two bills restricting abortion access. The bills, ‘The Missouri Fetal Heartbeat Ban’ and ‘The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,’ have been called among the restrictive anti-abortion bills in the country. The ‘Missouri Fetal Heartbeat Ban’ is a trigger bill, which means that in the event the Supreme Court Roe. v. Wade is overturned, abortion would be illegal in Missouri. The bills do, however, clarify that women will not be penalized for seeking abortion. Abortion rights have been slowly whittled down, leaving women seeking abortions with a laundry list of requirements. In Missouri, a woman must sometimes travel hundreds of miles to the only clinic that performs abortions in Missouri, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, and then give informed consent to the same doctor who will be performing the procedure, wait at least 72 hours, and come back to have the procedure before traveling back home. The abortion procedure itself can range in price from $470 to $1320. If a woman has Medicaid insurance coverage, it will only pay for the abortion in cases of rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is endangered. I don’t know anybody who has over a $1,000 at their disposal. Not only are abortions expensive and come with strict guidelines, but hospitals and clinics are not mandated to provide abortion services, or give information about abortion or referrals to clinics that perform the procedure. Some people who are against abortion are also against comprehensive, medically based sex education and birth control. Instead, abstinence education is offered in many school districts across the country. In Missouri, schools are not required to teach sex ed. It’s up to local school boards. According to sexetc.org,a website that has information “by teens, for teens”,’If a school chooses to provide sex ed, Missouri requires that all instruction must be medically and factually accurate and ‘present abstinence from sexual activity as the preferred choice of behavior in relation to all sexual activity for unmarried pupils.’ People are going to have sex. People have sex whether or not they have information on how to avoid Sexually Transmitted Infections or unwanted pregnancy. If someone is adamantly opposed to abortion, then they should be the biggest birth control advocates in the world. We’ll see how the Missouri legislature votes on the reproductive health bills. A woman’s reproductive health is not the government’s business. It is a deeply personal choice that only a woman can make for herself. And, for now, abortion is still a Constitutional right.
