EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | Contact
As the election debates continue, questions have been coming in hard and fast for the nation’s leaders, including their thoughts on divisive topics such as the housing crisis, minimum wage and the ultimate polariser – abortion.
This topic has arisen due to a leaked draft opinion from the US supreme court, which revealed a provision to overturn Roe vs Wade, which would see both women and the doctors who helped them criminalised for doing so – essentially, if a woman was raped and found a way to terminate her pregnancy, she would likely get more jail time than the rapist.
Created in 1973, Roe vs Wade was a landmark decision that gave women the right to their bodily autonomy, allowing them to terminate up to the third trimester of pregnancy. Before this, a woman could only terminate if it was necessary to save her life but not if the fetus showed signs of severe congenital defects.
This meant that women who didn’t want to have children, whether it was just a personal preference, lack of finances, mental or physical illness, or through rape, could not legally terminate their fetus, leaving them no other option but to continue through with the pregnancy for find abortion through other means.
In places like central America’s El Salvador, women are even being sentenced to jail for up to thirty years for having a miscarriage – the laws there being so draconian, that a woman cannot get an abortion in any scenario, even if giving birth will kill them.
Overturning Roe vs Wade also has the potential to open the door to further restrictions in reproductive health care such as Plan B, seeing as pregnancy is viewed at ‘starting at fertilisation.’
Understandably, setting this precedent is not only a terrifying time for women in the US but women worldwide.
But one person who doesn’t seem to be keeping up with the latest news in women’s rights (likely because it isn’t something Jenny has had to deal with, such as endometriosis) is Scott Morrison.
As evident when quizzed about his stance on Roe vs Wade, during the third election debate between him and his political opponent, Anthony Albanese.
“Roe vs Wade? Yeah sorry, I don’t follow the UFC”, said a puzzled Morrison, “you must be from Fox Sports.”
“Though, Jenny will be the first one to admit I’m a bit of a lightweight hahaha.”
“But in all seriousness, I’m here to talk about important issues mate.”
More to come.
