Ashley Allen
March 31, 2020
Women In Politics
Southern New Hampshire University
“Heartbeat” Bills Are A Violation Of Women’s Reproductive Rights
Once the initial indication of a baby heartbeat can be found, often at approximately six
weeks of pregnancy, North Dakota became the first state to approve a law known as the
"heartbeat bill" in 2013. Many pregnant women at this time are unaware of their condition,
making it impossible for them to have a safe abortion should they want to do so. Following
North Dakota's example, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio all
approved their own heartbeat laws in 2019. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme
Court established that women's right to abortion was guaranteed by the US Constitution. Often
about the twenty-four week stage, this act permitted a woman to have an abortion up until the
period at which a fetus might survive outside the womb. The heartbeat measure advances the
time when a woman may no longer receive an abortion lawfully by around four months from the
time that is thought to be acceptable.
Neither is this choice unlawful, but heartbeat measures directly violate women's
healthcare and abortion access. Many women need abortions as a kind of healthcare, thus to
place such harsh limitations on it is to blatantly violate women's rights to healthcare. They are
not, as they claim, preserving a baby's life by forbidding women from having abortions beyond
six weeks of gestation. Women who are unable to get abortions in their native states frequently
go to a state where they may do so lawfully. In this instance, a heartbeat measure accomplishes
little more than make it difficult but not impossible for a woman to seek a safe, legal abortion.
The heartbeat law may also result in the lady getting an illegal and frequently risky abortion.
These illegal abortions put the lady at high risk for complications and infections. However, the
mother still has the choice to place the child up for adoption after it is born if she absolutely
cannot find a means to undergo an abortion due to state constraints. This adds additional kids to
the currently dysfunctional child welfare system in the US, which can result in kids being moved
around and ending up in unhealthy or abusive homes.
The fundamental norm established by Roe v. Wade must be upheld in order to safeguard
women's reproductive rights. If a woman wants to have a safe, legal abortion, she shouldn't be
penalized for seeking it. There is no justification for making it unlawful for a woman to get an
abortion earlier than twenty-four weeks. Anything less than 24 weeks is unlawful and a flagrant
violation of women's human and abortion choice. By the time they are forty-five years old, 1 in 4
American women would have had an abortion, according to Planned Parenthood. The growing
stringent rules being implemented in several places to discourage and criminalize abortion are
totally immoral, discriminatory, and unlawful because this is an extremely prevalent medical
treatment.
