Planned Parenthood has called for a Day of Solidarity, today, March 9th , 2006. If there was ever a time for solidarity, today is it. Women will gather today at noon on the steps of courthouses across the country to protest the passing of law in South Dakota that bans all abortions except to save the life of the mother. The time has come for women to stop allowing lawmakers to chip away at our access to choice. We must let the men of this country know that women are capable of choosing for themselves, which acts are moral and which are not. We do not need men to do it for us. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is never an easy one. Only the woman who is faced with that situation can way out the varying factors to determine the if in her case, terminating the pregnancy is the appropriate choice. Sen. Bill Napoli has pronounced that, the kind of exception where he might allow an abortion would be for a girl, who is religious, a virgin and planned to save herself for marriage. If she is raped he might allow an abortion. The rest of us, if we are married, or ever had sex, or are not religious---well we are just out of luck. After all, only a religious virgin would be traumatized by rape. The rest of us should be Ok with carrying our rapist’s child.

The South Dakota ban is a gamble. Without an exception for rape, incest and health of the mother, it is a full frontal challenge to Roe V. Wade. In order for the South Dakota law to be upheld by the Supreme Court, Roberts and Alito would have overturn the precedent of Roe, that they claimed to respect in their conformation hearings. It presumes that Bush will have the opportunity to place another conservative on the court. This case is expected to move quickly through the lower courts and reach the Supreme Court near the 2008 presidential election, making it a key issue for the campaign. Perhaps even more dangerous than the South Dakota ban are the laws that attempt to restrict access to abortion and birth control. These laws attempt to remove our choice by making choice impracticable. The Supreme Court has ruled that protesters at abortion clinics can't be prosecuted under the anti-racketeering laws. As states continue to pass laws that place onerous restricts on clinic and create a political climate in which doctors are afraid to perform abortions, our choices become even more limited. Women are beginning to see that here may be a time in which they may be forced into illegal, unsafe clinics once again to terminate a pregnancy.

No matter how you personally feel about the morality of abortion, when you allow the state to legislate morality that directly effects your body, you are in essence saying that you as a women, should not be allowed to determine for yourself the morality of an act that affects your body. Laws set precedent on which future laws are determined. Do we want the government to be able to determine what is and isn’t moral for our bodies? What if the government were to decide that contraception was immoral? What if they decide that having a child you can’t afford is immoral? What if they decide that having too many or too few children is immoral? What if they decide we don’t need more boys or more girls? Once you decide its Ok for lawmakers to determine the moral rights and wrongs of our reproductive freedom, you have surrendered the all rights to make your own decisions. Who knows what morality a future administration will embrace? Moral decision regarding our bodies must be left in the hands of individual women. The state must not be given the right to determine when, where, how and if we choose to reproduce.