Blog post 4
Hailee Bryan
American Government and Politics
Dr. Jenkins
Blog Post 4
4/28/2022
Florida’s New 15-week Abortion Ban
April 14th, 2022, Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis signs a 15-week abortion ban into law. This new law bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy with no exceptions to rape or incest. This bill goes into effect July 1, 2022. The only exemption allowed are “high risk” pregnancies to the mother or child and must be confirmed by two doctors. The infamous Roe vs. Wade has paved the way for modern practice of abortion and has given many young women a choice over their body.
Being a young woman who resides in Florida and plans to after college, this topic is very important to me and other women like me who face these struggles every day. I grew up in a very small town in Northwest Florida. The area is very rural and highly conservative. Growing up, I was always told that abortion is wrong and murderous, and it was not until I got to college and away from my small-minded hometown that I realized it was not. There are many women, not just in Northwest Florida, but all around the nation who were taught the same ideals that I was. Some people, like me, are lucky enough to get away and find new experiences, meet new people, and change their viewpoints; however, some are not. Some remain and pass down generations of ideals and skewed views to their children, all of whom get to vote at some point in their lifetime. Here you can see how passing down views can affect laws and policies, by who the people vote for.
This affects the community because it restricts women’s rights. While 15 weeks is longer than the original ban, many women feel as though they do not have enough time to make a life-altering decision like that on such short notice. On average, women do not find out they are pregnant until the 5–7-week mark. This allows at most, 10 weeks for a woman to make one of the most difficult decisions of her life. A decision that many of her friends and family may judge her for. She then has to decide whether she will confide in someone, or go through this difficult process alone. Although this decision mostly affects the woman since she will be going through the medical procedure and dealing with the emotional aftermath, it also affects the male counterpart if he is actively involved in the decision making process.
Some solutions to this problem is expanding the time frame in which women can choose to get an abortion or giving different options for birth control. Although it may seem irrational to suggest more forms of birth control, it is rational to suggest different forms of birth control such as male contraceptives. Currently there are only two form of male contraceptives: condoms and a vasectomy. One new form of birth control currently being researched is the non hormonal male birth control pill. This seems to be the obvious answer to preventing unwanted pregnancies considering on average women can only have one pregnancy per 9 months whereas men can impregnate at least one women per day. Using this new form of birth control would greatly decrease the amount of unwanted pregnancies. In addition, since the men will be taking the birth control there should be no controversy in governing ones body since men seem to be in charge of everyone’s choices when it comes to the human body. Regarding the other solution of expanding the time frame in which a women can chose to get an abortion, ultimately this decision will continue to go back and forth depending on who is in office at the given time. Giving women more time to choose will also decrease the amount of unwanted pregnancies since women do not have to rush to make an appointment, decide to go through with the abortion, and having a better support system in place since they have more time to decided what was the right choice.
Making a big life decision such as buying a house, changing jobs, or getting married doesn’t have a maximum time frame required to make these decisions, so why should having a child have these ‘due dates’? Limiting women in the time they have to make these decisions and carry through with the medical process severely limits their abilities to get the medical procedures and should be considered illegal since it inhibits and infringes on a women’s right.