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Blog - Amplify your voice

Kentuckian Abortion Regulations
by:  chloebeth13
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 4:17:00 PM EST
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                I realize that in Kentucky, most teenagers think ‘Rowe,’ and ‘Wade,’ are just two ways to get across a river. But to pregnant teenage girls, the meaning of this pair of words is sometimes their most crucial right: Their right to choose to either terminate a pregnancy, or carry a pregnancy to term. Though abortion is legal everywhere in the United States, Kentucky’s great number of policies and regulations regarding underage women having abortions are restricting, and potentially unconstitutional.
            The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure routinely sends full-color, enlarged photographs of fetuses, and does biased telephone counseling with women who have been considering abortion. This is only after being told they cannot require these women to take these materials directly from the doctor’s office. I feel if women so choose to take the materials, they should be able to, but never required to take them or receive them in the mail. As opposed to forcing impregnated women to look at anti-choice, state-prepared materials in order to avoid abortion, they should turn to methods that work: Preventing pregnancy by providing safe sex education and affordable contraceptives.
            Because moral and religious beliefs are the main arguments behind anti-choice policies, I feel it is unconstitutional to put in place policies and regulations with an anti-choice bias. Religious ideology is no foundation for law. Freedom of religion is a basic right guaranteed to any and every American citizen.
Furthermore, the Kentuckian regulations against abortion do not stop abortion; they simply make young women turn to unsafe measures. Kentucky requires parental consent in any situation short of a severe risk of the mother’s life for teenage girls. This includes situations of rape, incest, or even child abuse. If permission is unattainable, girls must go to court for permission without parental consent. In order to avoid the process Kentucky requires, girls will drop weights on themselves, or go to other extremes to force miscarriage. Every year, 78,000 women die of unsafe abortions. Even if a teenage girl were to carry a pregnancy to term, they become five times more likely than an adult woman to die. Each year, 70,000 women ages 15-19 die due to childbirth or pregnancy; additionally, surviving babies are 60% more like to die as well.
In conclusion, Kentucky should revoke its policies regarding underage women having abortions. These policies do not stop abortion, but make it more unsafe. These policies restrict the rights of the women most likely to die by pregnancy or childbirth. These policies have an undeniable Christian bias in a country where laws and regulations are not supposed to. These policies need to be revoked.

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