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Congress and Women's Reproductive Rights

Megan King
Partisanship within Legal Abortion Laws
With Congress being bi-partisan and dealing with controversial topics like the legalization of Abortion, a topic like this can be subjected to the rejection or acceptance from the public on the policies that Congress. In Congress, this debate is complicated none the less because the public does support abortion thus in the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade,  the public does not wish to overturn the outcome on the case; not to mention that the public also wants it illegal in certain places (Doherty et al). Democrats say abortion should be “legal in most cases (45%) than in all cases (30%) “ (Doherty et al). Republicans however, their majority vote for abortion is in favor of having abortion being illegal. Then, there are the voters that don’t agree with either parties, specifically regarding their take on how to deal with the policies regarding abortion (Doherty et al). This means representation is very critical in this problem because any future laws involving the legality of abortion due to the need for specificity of the policies that only the majority would be satisfied thus, not going to Town Hall’s and having riots that would be an issue for Congress. Demographics are a huge factor with representation because each representative is supposed to reciprocate their location and populations ideology, which if they put legislation through, and the populous doesn’t like the policy the representative isn’t reelected which can happen with the election cycle coming up.

The issue about abortion is a perplex debate but I believe people are concerned on whether or not the fetus is developed and if the fetus has a heartbeat. Therefore, there are other people in the public who are concerned with the implications of the heartbeat which in some cases women do not know the terms of the development of the baby until later in the pregnancy. The debate can go many directions on how or why women should get an abortion, and ultimately it is up to the women. In general, not just in politics, the debate also includes differences in age, education, and religion (Doherty et al).  People over 50 are not likely to support abortion while people under 50 are more likely to support abortion however; people with higher education are more likely to support higher education (Doherty et al Demographics comes back because factors like age, education, and religion they are not the only contributors to why women can or cannot have an abortion. An article titled, “Our Broken Constitution” by Jeffrey Toobin demonstrates the main point of the pros and cons of the current American constitution; thus perspectives by Professors and professionals who have made a career in politics that share their perspectives on what that means for the United States, in the present and in the future. A few connections in the articles that continue to develop my argument is by Levins, a constitutionalist, that the constitution is a great design, but it is not the type of document of representation that the United States needs in this present era. Not to mention, Levin’s describes the Senate as being a body that the Founders never intended the majority vote to control everything and the Senate is suppose to be undemocratic, which may be still true but I think with different influence women are trying to make improvements to the Senate.

The image I chose to capture my argument is a graph of how states have a limit on when certain States ban abortions. This is important because sometimes women do have to go to other states in order to have the process completed. With the broader picture of women’s representation, is an article by Li Zhou titled, “It’s Official: a record-breaking number of women have won seats in Congress” which is historic because women are underrepresented in the political world. It will make a mark in women’s health care when women are representing women instead of just having older men not caring about women’s experiences in the world. Not to mention, Zhou points out that the more women in Congress, it will change stereotypes and even rebel against Trump’s administration who are anti women.


              In conclusion, there was a lot of information and trying to connect a lot of concepts together. The main point of the main article I was focusing by Doherty et al. was focusing not only on the statistics of what Democrats and Republicans favor, but the complexity of how to get votes to make sure the public is satisfied with the result, which in politics not everyone will agree. Therefore, the case Roe v. Wade is just one example that shows that the public agrees with the party they affiliate with. Representation in government is crucial to the voting within re-elections and voting cycles because if a representative is not going with the values of the demographics of the people in the place they represent, they aren’t going to be reelected. The article by Toobin represents that looking at the constitution, there is a lot of things that the Founders didn’t know that current politics has gone the direction that is present, but there is not enough checks and balances to have effective democratic practices and representation of people who aren’t white and male. The other article by Zhou demonstrates the challenges that representation of women is now being encouraged thus, no one can know what Congress will look like in the future when more women are being elected into office however; women’s health care will be better established in lawmaking when women can be there to facilitate those conversations. With abortion, yes, it is complicated, and no one can speak for women’s reproductive rights other than women thus, it will take a long time before there is a majority agreement on what to do with this issue.

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