Enlight 21

Happy freakin’ birthday, ‘Merica

It’s July 4, 2022.

Happy birthday, America…

This year feels especially wrong to celebrate the birth of our nation. Once a beacon of freedom and opportunity, America, especially in recent years, has not lived up to its symbol. Our country has been disgraced by its most recent f***-up, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which has legally re-banned abortion in half of US states, thrusting us back in time to an era of intolerance and control over women’s rights to autonomy over their bodies.

Women then fought hard to legalize abortion, and succeeded.

Fast forward to 2022. The Supreme Court, strategically packed with Republican justices hungry for power and votes, has effectively dismantled the efforts of then and set us back about 70 years. Like, what the actual hell is happening to our country?

Some thoughts:

if you don’t like abortion, don’t get one. but in pushing your pro-life agenda down everyone’s throats you are stripping women of their natural human right to free choice and freedom over their bodies. live and let live, right? NO LONGER.
this goes way beyond banning act of abortion. this sets the precedent for banning individual rights across all fronts, showing that all it takes to do so is strategic political machination to materialize extremist agendas. this is what happened with overturning roe v. wade– something no one would have expected to happen in 2022.
some people argue that the overturning of roe v. wade doesn’t change anything… if you’re a woman in a red state and want/need an abortion, you can simply fly to a blue state like California to get one. nope, this oversimplifies the issue and ignores the reality of women for whom getting out-of-state abortions is neither financially nor logistically feasible. some women cannot afford to miss work or leave behind their family/other children to get an abortion. in the same way ease of access to resources is unequal across individuals and populations, flying out of state to get an abortion is a privilege not afforded to everyone.
some fox news anti-truth propaganda: it’s the leftists to blame for instigating this whole fiasco. allegedly, democrats in recent years have pushed for more radicalized abortions (i.e. pre-term abortions and legalized abortion up to birth of the fetus). if democrats had not tried to go H.A.M. with extending abortion rights to the extreme, this whole thing would be a non-issue and everyone could continue living the way we had when roe v. wade was first put in place. IT’S THE DAMN DEMOCRATS WHO STIRRED THE POT AND CAUSED THIS TO HAPPEN. What bull. What rot. Where even is the evidence for such flimsy claims?
getting an abortion is risky business. in some red states like Texas, abortion is criminalized with measures in place to spy on and report women who get abortions. consequences include serious fines and even jail time if women are discovered to have received an abortion (be it out of state or via under-the-table procedures / abortion medication).
you say that a fetus or unborn child has the right to live; what about the right of the mother? what of mothers who have medical conditions that render pregnancy life-threatening? what of mothers who get ectopic pregnancies, fatal if not aborted?
let’s not even get started about women for whom pregnancy is not a safe, smart, or feasible option: victims of rape or incest; teenage pregnancy; women who cannot financially support a child. there are plenty of reasons to have an abortion, but the reason is beside the point. in banning the right to abortion, women are stripped of the choice to do what they think is best for themselves. like I said before, if you don’t believe in abortion yourself, that is okay. by the same token, if you do believe in abortion, that choice should also be okay and respected, not criminalized and banned. Equality? NO LONGER.
let’s knock conservatives off their high horse. they stand on their moral high-ground and preach their values: justice for the unborn, right to life for the fetus. um, what about right of choice and life for mothers and women? conservative pro-life warriors hide behind sanctimonious pretenses without recognizing the hypocrisy and contradictions underlying their flimsy argument. or maybe, they recognize it. they just choose to ignore it on principle. ignoramus, or willful ignoramus. which would you rather be?

Here’s what you can do:

donate to an abortion fund: https://abortionfunds.org/
find a rally or protest
pressure your local government to take legislative action to protect the right to abortion in your area
if you’re in an abortion-hostile state (and even if you aren’t) consider purchasing abortion pills or emergency contraception to have on hand. more about abortion pills: plancpills.org

About: Belicia Tang

Hello, everyone! My name is Belicia, and welcome to my page! A little bit about myself-- I am a graduate from UCLA, class of 2019. Go Bruins!!! I earned a B.A. in Psychology and aspire to become a sports and performance psychologist. I am a sports enthusiast, particularly in aesthetic sports (gymnastics, figure skating, dancing). I am also a champion of the performance arts with a love for music, dancing, musical theater, acting, and more! My creative passions include competitive Latin ballroom dance, figure skating, rhythmic gymnastics and, of course, writing. I enjoy writing about mental health, sports, mental health in sports, film and book reviews, and personal reflections. I hope you find my work enlightening, engaging and entertaining!

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Comment:

Shawn Li

I still don't know what my stance on abortions is. I think it's an incredibly complicated topic that I need to really ponder over before I give an opinion favoring either pro-choice or pro-life. I've heard takes for both sides, and I'm still not sure where I stand. So I can't ...Read more really comment on any of the points you made about abortion in this article. What I can comment on is the implication Roe v. Wade has for future cases. I agree with you on this point. The idea that any party could overturn such a longstanding ruling simply by gaining the majority in the Supreme Court scares me. The overturning of Roe v. Wade has set a dangerous precedent, and only history will tell what comes of this. I thought this was a very well-written article, and it certainly made me think. Less

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Katherine Geng

I completely agree with all the points mentioned in this article, and I find the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade to be such an infuriating decision. To add on, I find that many individuals don't realize how much of an impact this decision will make on other groups as well. Many think that the ...Read more only ones affected by the decision are women and that because of that, they won't need to worry, but the Roe v. Wade decision set a precedent for other cases to also be overturned. One example could be Obergefell v. Hodges which allowed for same-sex marriages. This would affect the LGBTQ+ community, and with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it's plausible that this case could also get overturned. In short, many other communities are also indirectly affected by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Besides, the whole overturning of the case was ridiculous and beyond hypocritical. America has always valued "freedom", "liberty", and "democracy" - with these ideas being the literal pillars of the founding of America. From the Declaration of Independence to even the Amendments, freedom has been the basis and the idea that America prided itself and most of it's decisions on. But overturning Roe v. Wade completely contradicts those values. It completely disregards the freedom and right a woman has to her OWN body. It's just so ridiculous that a woman can't even control what she does with HER BODY. Furthermore, the number of rape & teenage pregnancy cases has significantly skyrocketed in recent years according to U.S. statistics, so the fact that abortions are no longer allowed in red states is extremely concerning. What if a woman gets raped? What if a woman becomes pregnant as a teenager? There are so many more of these cases nowadays. In most of these cases, the mother isn't even prepared - whether that's being financially or mentally stable. So in no way should she be forced to have the baby Less

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Belicia Tang

typo: should read "set us back about 50 years", not 70.

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Sue C.

Belicia: I really enjoyed reading this compelling piece on how the overturning of women's reproductive rights effected by the overturning of Roe v. Wade will bring us back to the Dark Ages of the pre-Roe era when women did not have the constitutional right to make reproductive decisions for ...Read more themselves. You also effectively debunked the so-called "pro-life" arguments of conservatives. If reproductive rights are not reinstated, women of reproductive age --especially those in the conservative Red states where anti-abortion laws are already in effect or will be soon--will revert back to the way it was before Roe v. Wade gave women the constitutional right to make decisions regarding their own bodies. The pre-Roe v. Wade era (before 1973) was one in which many women died or were injured by self-abortions and many unwanted children were born. New York City, for example, saw a major decline in violent crimes starting approximately 15 years after Roe v. Wade was passed. That tells you what happens when women are forced to have babies when they are not ready and cannot care for them, as well as what the serious societal consequences are. So, one major question for the bombastic "pro-life" conservatives is this: Will you take care of the babies that will be born because women can no longer make reproductive decisions? WILL YOU PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR BIG MOUTH IS? Less