The Abortion Issue

She just celebrated her fifteenth birthday with family and friends and to make things even more special, her boyfriend had a very special birthday surprise planned out for her: a romantic candlelit dinner and fireworks afterwards. He had collected all his pennies just for this special day. One thing led to another and the mood was set and things went further than expected.

The lack of available protection didn’t stop either of them in the heat of the moment. Neither one thought much of it until months later when she realized she’s a few days late. Her nerves got the best of her and she rushed to get a pregnancy test. Shaking and trembling, tears in her eyes, she waited to see the result; will she have to put off that scholarship to college? Will her entire life change in the next few seconds? Then, the result came up, two blue lines… a plus sign… a smiley face… she was now pregnant at fifteen. What’s next?

They met senior year in high school and were inseparable ever since. He proposed on the day of their college graduation in front of all their family and friends. They had a small ceremony with their close ones present to watch them become one. They had always dreamt of having children together and never thought that it would one day be their biggest issue. Several doctors’ appointments later, they were told they would never be able to have children; they were given a few pamphlets for different adoption agencies and were sent home to think of their next move.

Adoption? It would be a great opportunity to help a child out and we would bring them up as our own but… does that mean that as a woman, she would never be able to carry a child ever? She would never feel the little kicks in her stomach, go to the ultrasounds and even use the cravings as an excuse to break her strict diet ever in her life? That’s it then.

These are two of the many examples of people that will be affected by the abortion bill passing in Texas. When you stop and think for a moment, many will think of at least one person they know that was put in either situation: a sister, a cousin, a friend, your own girlfriend/fiancée/wife. Many have been put in a predicament where they had to make a decision as to whether they could support a child and bring them up properly or walk away from this situation and hope that that was the right decision.

Abortion is a very controversial topic to say the least, many describe is as a pro-life versus anti-life conflict stating that those who push for abortion to be legal and an available service statewide are murderers. It’s difficult to pick sides because sometimes, especially for women at a young age, they know they can’t provide for the child the life that they deserve and so better to simply let go of it than to torture their child for the rest of their lives. Others say this is wrong and putting the child up for adoption would be a better option then killing it.

Last week we saw Texas senators battle it out as they attempted to push through an anti-abortion bill. The bill would make it illegal to abort a pregnancy after twenty weeks and would only allow clinics with admittance privileges to perform the surgery. This would mean that out of the 42 clinics now open in the state of Texas, only 5 would remain after the bill passes.

This would make abortion less accessible to many women in the state as they would have to travel longer distances to get to the nearest abortion clinic. Americans watched as Senator Wendy Davis pulled the oldest trick in governmental history to delay the vote for the bill. Her filibuster lasted approximately twelve hours propelling her in the media and making her a local hero to those opposing the bill. She was seen following her feat among protestors thanking them for their support and expressing that it was their raucous chants that kept her going.

At the same time, protestors that were for the bill were also in the area chanting pro-life slogans and trying to spread the word that abortion is a barbaric act and no child no matter how small they are in their mother’s belly should be killed. This small little piece of life deserves a chance at growing up and being one of us, how could someone bring themselves to terminate a poor, defenseless child in the womb?

Ethically speaking, an anti-abortion bill would be overstepping boundaries for women and taking away their rights to freedom of choice thus forcing them to do something that they are either not ready or not willing to do. As women, we have to be ready to bear children, they are a huge responsibility and they come with many repercussions. We need to be ready for our bodies to change, our energy level, diet and even our freedom to move around for nine months before we surrender our lives and devote it entirely to this tiny bundle of joy that depends on us for every little thing.

As with any controversial topic, finding a right answer would be nearly impossible, for every argument there will always be a rebuttal of some sort. Is it right to force a young lady still in the prime of her youth to carry a child when she herself will not be able to support said child? Or is it okay to take away a part of women’s rights that we fought so hard to get in the first place. Some may say that the bill leaves space for the extreme cases of teen pregnancies or the likes and that that should be good enough for us but again it becomes a little overbearing when the government is making decisions on what a woman can do with her ovaries and the fetus she’s carrying.

Yasmine Hassan | Elite.