Seven years before I was born, the U.S. Supreme Court assured me one of the most important rights I have as a U.S. citizen — the right to make decisions about my own body. Now, 29 years later, the same legal body is poised to try to take that right away.
The decision I am talking about is of course the infamous Roe v. Wade case. However, if the small but vocal minority of anti-choice activists in this country get their way, Roe v. Wade, along with any chance of my equality as a woman, will be history.
The connection between a woman’s control over her body and a woman’s status in society has even been recognized by the Supreme Court. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the opinion of the court was that “the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.”
The danger of abortion laws being repealed is ever-present but covert. In a recent survey by Lake Snell Perry, 58 percent of women under the age of 30 reported they would be worried if President Bush tried to overturn Roe vs. Wade by appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Even the retirement of one justice could upset the very tenuous 5-4 balance.
But being worried is not enough. In this day and age, when a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body is being rapidly reduced by ridiculous and punitive court decisions, it is of the utmost importance for young women and men to work to preserve that right.
Roe vs. Wade was not a decision about abortion or morality; rather, it was about believing that women are human enough to make up their own minds about their own bodies.
In a perfect world, where everyone regardless of gender, economic status or race receives honest education about sex, has access to free contraceptives that work 100 percent of the time and where rape is nonexistent, abortions would not be necessary. But there is no such place.
Abortion is a hard and important decision for a woman, but it must remain her decision.
A fundamental belief in democratic societies is in the right to self-determination. To deny a woman the right to control all aspects of her body is the same as saying that she is not an equal human.
Indeed, the influences of societal attitudes that deny women the right to choose are far-reaching. If a woman isn’t allowed to decide what stays in her body, then a society feels more justified in taking control over what enters her body and what action occurs to her body.
The statistics bear this out. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that one woman is raped in the United States every 90 seconds, and according to the United Nations Study on the Status of Women, one woman in America is beaten every 15 seconds.
Our attitudes toward reproductive freedom and equality for women go hand-in hand with our societal tolerance toward violence against women.
Along with this, though, is a very potent solution that we as young adults can use to ensure our rights and the rights of the next generation. We must not take for granted the work of our predecessors. It is the responsibility of all people in this country who believe in individual freedom to become informed of the issues and to translate that knowledge into active advocacy and change.
The path will not be an easy one, and the victory will not be won by passive recognition of the problem. It will take a lot of voices and even more courage, but it is perhaps the greatest challenge that we must meet.
This column, by Kasia Rutledge, is courtesy
of the University of Missouri at Kansas City’s
student newspaper, the University News.