2008 Woodie Awards
Abortion
By: Vendela Englblom
Issue date: 4/21/06 Section: Opinion
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The recent South Dakota criminalization of abortion demonstrates that, rather than looking out for unborn children, the current pending anti-abortion laws are trying to inhibit women's rights to control their own bodies. Our neighbor state is not the only one: 11 other states are currently considering similar legislation, and the Supreme Court recently agreed to review President Bush's Federal Abortion Ban. South Dakota is at the front of the line; if one looks closer at the motivations behind South Dakota House Bill 1215, the law is a perfect representation of the profound disregard for female mental and physical health that lies beneath the present pro-life legislative movements.
Under the guise of protecting fetuses, the South Dakota law represents a serious danger to the health of the mother. The bill only allows for abortions where they save the life of the mother; this provision replaces the phrase “to preserve the mother's health,” used nationwide in previous reproductive rights bills. This linguistic shift has concrete repercussions: what if carrying to term will make the woman sterile, but will not kill her? Or what if she has been raped? There are no exceptions for victims of rape or incest in the new law. South Dakota legislators apparently do not see the unpleasant implications of controlling pregnancies of women who have gone through crimes where their bodies were under the control of someone else. In this context, Governor Mike Rounds' statement when signing the bill that “the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society” seems tragically comic.
South Dakota Senator Bill Napoli makes it abundantly clear that the perspective on women's rights underlying the bill is aimed at making women conform to outdated gender roles and at severely limiting their personal choices. When asked what he saw as a possible case for being allowed an abortion, he responded: “A real-life description would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”
Under the guise of protecting fetuses, the South Dakota law represents a serious danger to the health of the mother. The bill only allows for abortions where they save the life of the mother; this provision replaces the phrase “to preserve the mother's health,” used nationwide in previous reproductive rights bills. This linguistic shift has concrete repercussions: what if carrying to term will make the woman sterile, but will not kill her? Or what if she has been raped? There are no exceptions for victims of rape or incest in the new law. South Dakota legislators apparently do not see the unpleasant implications of controlling pregnancies of women who have gone through crimes where their bodies were under the control of someone else. In this context, Governor Mike Rounds' statement when signing the bill that “the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society” seems tragically comic.
South Dakota Senator Bill Napoli makes it abundantly clear that the perspective on women's rights underlying the bill is aimed at making women conform to outdated gender roles and at severely limiting their personal choices. When asked what he saw as a possible case for being allowed an abortion, he responded: “A real-life description would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”
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