By SERIAH SARGENTON
Assistant Editor
One of the most heated topics across the nation found light when Governor Andrew Cuomo decided to sign a bill that would protect Roe vs. Wade, in case the Supreme Court decided to overturn it. Cuomo said that this decision helps protect women in New York State so that if the federal government decides to criminalize abortion, we would be the leaders in protecting a woman’s right to decide.
The New York State Reproductive Health Act guarantees that any medical professional completing an abortion after 24 weeks will not be criminalized if it’s to save the life of the mother. There is a misconception that this new law means that any women can just abort a full-term child whenever they like. That is not true and it’s silly to think that.
This misconception comes from the fact that people are not fact-checking their sources. Rather than reading the actual bill, people are choosing to base their opinions on blogs ran by local Catholic churches and memes shared on Facebook. Without reading the actual bill, how are you supposed to know what the law is about? A copy of the law and an explanation of it can be found on the NYS Senate website.
Stubbornness seems to be the only reason that people would think that they could abort a baby the last minute for no apparent reason. I agree that having unprotected sex comes with consequences. However, not all women are having sex without acknowledging the consequences. Most people understand that after five months of pregnancy, it’s a bit too late to make such a drastic decision.
The new law states, “In his or her lawful scope of practice, may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner’s reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient’s case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.”
This means that abortions in the third trimester can only occur if there is a life at stake. Unless the child or birth mother is dying, it’s still illegal to complete an abortion after the second trimester. Medical professionals who break this law are subject to felony charges and imprisonment for several years. All the law did was give women the opportunity to spare themselves of emotional and physical weight of giving birth to a deceased baby.
Could you go through an entire nine months knowing that the chances of the child living are slim? If the answer to this is no, then how do you expect other women to. If you would, then that’s great for you, but not all women can deal with that kind of pain. This law gives women with hardships another chance of creating the perfect family they’ve dreamed of.
I understand that adoption is a better way to give a child a second chance at a better lifestyle, but this isn’t about perfectly healthy babies. The law won’t let an irresponsible teenager abort a baby because they want to. The law isn’t for women to make last minute decisions about their lives.
This is about women who struggle through their pregnancy because they baby is unhealthy. This is about the mom who has to grieve over her baby because it choked itself to death by accident with the umbilical cord right before being delivered. This is for the mothers who have a medical history that involves complicated pregnancies.
As the year passes, one can hope that women who take advantage of this will not be scrutinized for it. In my opinion, if this decision does not impact you then it’s none of your business.
Why do you care if I decide to have an abortion because I’m dying? Your moral beliefs are not the same as mine. No one should ever be forced into following a set of morals that doesn’t apply to them.
