Abortion Reform vs. Repeal Strategies Compared

Abortion Reform vs. Repeal Strategies Compared What was the difference between reform of abortion laws and repeal of abortion laws? The distinction was important to feminists during the 1960s and early 1970s. Many people were working to reform century-old abortion laws throughout the United States, but some activists argued that these attempts at reform disregarded the autonomy of women and supported mens continued control over women. A better goal, the feminist activists insisted, was the repeal of all laws that restricted womens reproductive freedom. A Movement for Abortion Reform Although a few stalwart individuals had spoken out quite early for abortion rights, the widespread call for abortion reform began during the middle of the 20th century. During the late 1950s, the American Law Institute worked to establish a model penal code, which proposed that abortion be legal when: The pregnancy resulted from rape or incestThe pregnancy gravely impaired the physical or mental health of the womanThe child would be born with serious mental or physical defects or deformities A few states reformed their abortion laws based on the ALIs model code, with Colorado leading the way in 1967. In 1964, Dr. Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood founded the Association for the Study of Abortion (ASA).   The organization was a small group about twenty active members including lawyers and physicians. their intent was to educate on abortion, including publishing educational materials and supporting research on the single issue of abortion. Their position was primarily a reform position at first, looking at how laws could be changed. They eventually shifted to supporting repeal, and helped provide the legal counsel, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, for the  Roe v. Wade  case when it went to the Supreme Court in the 1970s. Many feminists rejected these attempts at abortion reform, not just because they did not go far enough but because they were still based entirely on a concept of women being protected by men and subject to the scrutiny of men. Reform was harmful to women, because it reinforced the idea that women must ask permission from men. Repeal the Abortion Laws Instead, feminists called for repeal of abortion laws. Feminists wanted abortion to be legal because they wanted justice for women based on freedom and individual rights, not a hospital medical boards decision of whether a woman should be granted an abortion. Planned Parenthood began taking a repeal, rather than reform, position in 1969. Groups such as the National Organization for Women began to work for repeal. The National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws was founded in 1969. Known as NARAL, the groups name changed to the National Abortion Rights Action League after the Supreme Courts 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry published a position paper about abortion in 1969 called The Right to Abortion: A Psychiatric View. Womens liberation groups such as Redstockings held abortion speak-outs and insisted that womens voices be heard alongside mens. Lucinda Cisler Lucinda Cisler was a key activist who often wrote about the need for repeal of abortion laws. She claimed that public opinion about abortion was distorted because of the framing of the debate. A pollster might ask, Under what circumstances would you favor a woman having an abortion? Lucinda Cisler imagined asking Do you favor freeing a slave when his bondage is (1)injurious to his physical health†¦? and so on. Instead of asking how we can justify abortion, she wrote, we should be asking how we can justify compulsory child bearing. The proponents of change always pictured women as victims of rape, or of rubella, or of heart disease or mental illness never as possible shapers of their own destinies.- Lucinda Cisler in Unfinished Business: Birth Control and Womens Liberation published in the 1970 anthology Repeal vs. Reform: Finding Justice In addition to defining women as needing to be somehow protected, abortion reform laws took for granted state control of the fetus at some point. Furthermore, activists who challenged old abortion laws now had the added difficulty of challenging additional reformed-but-still-flawed abortion laws, too. Although reform, modernization or liberalization of abortion laws sounded good, feminist activists insisted that repeal of abortion laws was the true justice for women. (edited and new material added by Jone Johnson Lewis)

3 Cases of Distracting Usage

3 Cases of Distracting Usage 3 Cases of Distracting Usage 3 Cases of Distracting Usage By Mark Nichol Word choice is problematic when the sense of a selected word, when read in association with another word, creates a diversion for the reader that distracts from the content. Here are three sentences with distracting words, along with solutions for revising them to avoid the distraction. 1. â€Å"He turned heads in scientific circles when he proposed that climate change is the driving force in human revolution.† The association of the past tense of the idiom â€Å"turn heads,† which means â€Å"draw sudden attention,† with the phrase â€Å"scientific circles,† a figure of speech in which the plural form of circle refers to a broad community of people with a common interest, unfortunately suggests that the subject caused the heads of his colleagues to rotate in a scientific manner. Revise one expression or the other: â€Å"He turned heads in the scientific community when he proposed that climate change is the driving force in human revolution† or â€Å"He attracted attention in scientific circles when he proposed that climate change is the driving force in human revolution.† 2. â€Å"The redrawn logo has drawn criticism.† The proximity of the adjective redrawn, which refers to the act of drawing an illustration over again, and the use of drawn as a verb to mean â€Å"attracted† creates an unintentionally humorous collision of ideas. Again, reword the adjective or the verb: â€Å"The revised logo has drawn criticism† or â€Å"The redrawn logo has attracted criticism.† 3. â€Å"An Ohio city will settle a lawsuit over 911 calls.† Because over is often used in place of â€Å"more than† to mean â€Å"an excess of,† the reader may momentarily assume that the number 911 is an amount rather than a sequence of digits that constitute a phone number. Replace over with another word (â€Å"An Ohio city will settle a lawsuit regarding 911 calls†) or, better, provide unambiguous details: â€Å"An Ohio city will settle a lawsuit regarding emergency 911 calls† or â€Å"An Ohio city will settle a lawsuit regarding calls made to 911.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:What Is Irony? (With Examples)How Long Should a Paragraph Be?I wish I were...