Today's Struggle

When studying the history of The Pill, it is important to realize that its integration and acceptance into American society was not the end of the struggle for women and their reproductive rights; it was only the beginning. The Pill was the precursor to cases such as Roe v. Wade in 1973, which gave women the right to choose to have an abortion and the development and approval of the RU-486 ("abortion pill") in 2000. However, today, women are still battling with conservative politicians and associations who are trying to reverse these earlier decisions, sending America back toward an earlier society- a society that limited women's rights.

Although abortion is legal, it is still a controversial issue concerning our country today. It has assimilated its way into candidates' platforms and to political agenda. President Bush's Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003, and the introduction of the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act and the RU-486 Suspension and Review Act to Congress are just a few efforts to make abortion illegal. Today's women are fighting the same battle as women in the 1960s. Again, the government is trying to infringe on women's reproductive rights by passing legislation over their body. The core argument against The Pill during the 1960s was that it prevented the conception of life. Similarly, the contended issue with abortion is the belief of when life begins. Anti-abortion advocates believe the life of a baby begins at conception, when the sperm and ovum meet to form a single cell therefore making abortion murder. This is more of a personal assertion rather than a scientific one. It is not the government's duty to decide what a woman can and cannot do with regards to her body. Some believe that abortions should only be allowed when a woman's life is in danger, in the case of rape or incest, or if the fetus is deformed, which would take women back to 1965 when abortions were banned in all fifty-states, except under those conditions. How far does the establishment want to take women's rights back? Are they eventually going to push women back to 1919, before the 19th amendment, when they weren't allowed to vote?

Women are on the brink of having the rights, that they worked so adamantly for, taken away by government officials who have never walked a step in a woman's shoes. It is vital to remember the earlier struggles in the women's rights movement and continue to fight today with their same desire and conviction. As the years progress, so should society, and unfortunately we are not.

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