I was appalled to see the Genocide Awareness Project displaying its grotesque posters on campus this week. This far-right group tours college campuses and compares the legal medical procedure of abortion to the genocide of human beings.
Not only is this offensive to women, but it also trivializes all victims of genocide. Advocates of women’s rights have long maintained that abortion must be legal, safe and accessible.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated that abortion rights center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature. For women to obtain true equality with men in society, we must have control over our own bodies. That includes control over if and when we have children.
Prior to the passing of Roe v. Wade in 1973, botched back-alley abortions were prevalent.
Before women were granted the freedom that allowed them to be in control of their bodies, these procedures would often result in death, infertility or some other serious complication for women.
One in three women will need an abortion during her lifetime, yet pro-life advocates such as the GAP say that the criminalization of abortion would result in a drastic drop of women aborting pregnancies.
This simply is not the case.
Criminalizing access to abortion simply makes it more difficult – and dangerous – for women to obtain.
In July 2008, the Brazilian Parliament voted to make abortion illegal excluding rape or incest cases. As a result, the government estimated that more than 200,000 Brazilian women are hospitalized annually as a result of botched abortions. According to a study by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, close to 1 million women seek illegal abortions in Brazil’s underground clinics.
In contrast, death from unsafe abortions is almost unheard of in places where it is available upon request. Thus, it is essential that safe medical abortion services be made available to all women.
The visitation from the GAP, along with the recent proposal of the Stupak amendment that, if passed, would prevent federal subsidies for abortions, exhibit the necessity of a movement that fights for women to have full control over their bodies.
These events represent the type of discriminatory barrier and gender-based exclusion that must be met with strong opposition.
Keep your laws – and your religion – off our bodies.
Nora Hidalgo is a business junior and a member of the International Socialist Organization and may be reached at [email protected]
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