COLUMN: Fight for women's rights starts here
As a young woman, college student and activist I see my rights being withered away on a daily basis.
Men are gathering every day in local, state and national capitals to further corrode women’s rights. Every day, I see women being subjected to a substandard life because of rules of political empowered men who seek control over our lives and bodies.
The fight for women’s rights is closer than we think.
Recently I was walking through Barnes Residence Hall first floor community bath section.
I always look at what posters or signs RAs and MAs put up, but today, I found myself gazing upon a deeply disturbing “sign of wisdom.” IThe first statements were “10 Arguments for Abortion” and “10 Arguments Against Abortion.” Immediately, I was perturbed by the wording because no one is “pro-abortion” in a sense that a woman ever wants or wishes for an abortion.
Abortion is not legal because women want one like candy out of a vending machine, they need legal access to abortion because one in three women will experience a legal abortion in their lifetime.
Another statement was the following: "Those who choose abortions are often minors or young women with insufficient life experience to fully understand what they are doing. Many have lifelong regrets afterwards."
According to the Guttmacher Institute, only 18 percent of teen women receive an abortion.
Women in their 20s make up half of women who get an abortion. Sixty-one percent of all abortions are obtained by women who already have one or more children. Surely, children are an “insufficient” life experience.
There was more incorrect, disturbing information. The “Arguments against Abortion” column cited a relationship between abortion funding and tax dollars. This is false. The Hyde Amendment bans public funding of abortion. Tax dollars do not fund abortions.
Coming across this poster in the men’s community bathroom section was extraordinarily disturbing.
Why? Because a man will never bodily experience an unwanted pregnancy.
A man will never have to feel chastised for being an unwed mother or a woman who made a decision to terminate a pregnancy. The fact that this was in an all-male corridor with incorrect data leads to the men we see in politics today. To provide privileged students, especially males, with falsified statements is a recipe for disaster for women’s reproductive rights.
This column is not about changing informed, thought-out opinions about abortion.
It is, however, about the ethicality of providing students at Central Michigan University with correct facts so they, too, can make informed, thought-out opinions on their own. I encourage opinions; but when opinions blend with propaganda at the hands of individuals charged with nurturing ethical and social growth in students, that is where I believe the trouble begins.
Brynn McDonnell is member of College Democrats. This column does not reflect the views of that organization.
