IVF ruling leaves students questioning future of women’s bodily autonomy
American heads were left spinning after a recent ruling made by the Alabama Supreme Court on February 16 declared that embryos created through in vitro fertilization (more commonly known as IVF) should be considered children.
This ruling led numerous IVF clinics within the state to halt their practices for fear of facing legal repercussions. The indirect repeal of accessible pregnancy has upset many Americans; something which translates to West’s female student population as well.
“The direction we’re moving in makes me nervous, because for the government to think that it’s okay to make these decisions for women is insane. They’re indirectly taking away rights from people who are trying to start families,” said junior Emma Otradovec.
Otradovec isn’t the only female student feeling nerves following the ruling, as junior Lucy Whitcomb has similar reservations.
“At the end of the day, all it’s doing is controlling women who are planning on becoming pregnant, or are pregnant,” she said. “It takes it back to women having control over their bodies, and it’s setting us back further in history and undoing a lot of progress, both scientific and where rights are concerned.”
A common thread throughout student fears is the topic of women’s rights -- something which has been up in the air since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to one freshman at West.
“Ever since they made that decision, I fear for the lives of women who can’t access abortion because they don’t have the means to travel across state lines. It seems like the government keeps trying to force women into positions they don’t want to be in,” she said. “Now, what if a woman in Alabama can’t get pregnant and wants to do IVF? The government needs to make up their minds: do they want women to have children or not?”
Since the ruling, more and more women have been fearing the loss of future rights.
“The direction we’re moving in makes me nervous, because for the government to think that it’s okay to make these decisions for women is insane,” Otradovec said.
A lot of the anger regarding the restrictions in abortion access stems from the many people passing, creating, and ruling on this legislation.
“Men don’t understand, and they don’t actually care about the repercussions, because they aren’t the ones going through all of the physical and emotional changes that pregnancy causes,” Otradovec said. “They see it as not being their problem -- not their circus, not their monkeys.”
However, halfway around the world, France recently approved a bill making abortion a constitutional right. France has become the first country in the world to enact legislation as such, and many Americans, like junior Nicole Osborne, are hoping that the U.S. will follow suit.
“I think at its core it should be a right,” Osborne said. “While I understand the argument of not getting an abortion based on religion, or whatever your argument is, it ultimately comes down to an individual decision. No one group of people, or one person, should be able to choose for thousands of women.”
Whitcomb has similar thoughts on the matter.
“It gives me a lot of hope, especially when looking at this other news on the other side of the spectrum,” Whitcomb said. “Having such a large world power making such progress and taking such a step forward gives me hope that the US will follow in their lead, and realize that this is a decision that needs to be made. Especially because the reality shouldn’t be that we are moving backwards with opposite decisions.”
Many women across the United States continue to seek change and widen availability of abortion care.
“It does give me hope seeing that countries such as France are making progress,” Whitcomb said.
by Emma Toney
Published April 1st 2024
Oshkosh West Index Volume 120 Issue VI