A Woman's Right

“Donald Trump elected the 45th President of the United States.” I stood staring at the words displayed in bold white letters across my television screen in shock. My body felt numb, but my mind was racing with too many thoughts to single any one out. Once the numbness subsided, I began to feel a wide range of emotions; sad, angry, frustrated, afraid, but ultimately confused. I began to consider the implications of a Donald Trump administration. Well that was nearly three months ago, fast forward to today and now the implications of a Donald Trump administration are my reality.

“I feel like all of my options are being taken away from me and my rights are being compromised.” I could see the panic in my friend’s eyes and hear the pain in her voice and she described her concerns as a young woman in the face of the new Trump administration. My friend and I talked for nearly two hours about all of the swift changes that are being made and how our lives, and the lives of millions of women across the country, will be directly impacted.

One of the main topics we discussed was women’s health and reproductive rights. It has been made clear to the nation that the new administration is taking steps to both make abortion illegal and take away funding for Planned Parenthood. In fact, on January 24^th, the president signed an executive order which prevents international non-governmental organizations that perform or promote abortions from receiving U.S government funding (Koran, 2017). He was photographed signing the order surrounded by six other men.  “Why do men get to make decisions about what women do with their bodies?” my friend asked with confusion in her tone. This is a question that crosses my mind every single day, but unfortunately, there is no answer.

Bearing a child is an ability unique to women, so I believe that women should be able to control when, how, and if they want to have a child. It makes absolutely no sense for the government to be able to force a woman to have a child, and by retracting women’s abortion rights, women will essentially be forced against their will to produce children.

Further than aiming to make abortion illegal, taking away Planned Parenthood funding as a means to try to ban abortions is a violation of women’s rights. Shutting down Planned Parenthood would not only infringe on the abortion rights of women, but it would leave millions of women without basic general healthcare, especially in low-income communities. Planned Parenthood provides general healthcare services such as anemia testing, cholesterol screening, diabetes screening, physical exams, flu vaccines, help with quitting smoking, high blood pressure screening and tetanus vaccines at little to no cost. (Planned Parenthood, 2017). The organization also performs screenings for various cancers specific to women.

After a long discussion about all of this with my friend, I was left considering many questions. Why do they care? Is it about money? About the rich receiving lower tax cuts? Well if that is the case, what about human lives? Apparently the value of the dollar is more than the value of a life.