Author: Valeria Pastran

Final Project

In my creative project, I drew a woman that has an umbrella of various colors which signifies different women all over the world, and no matter how bad the day is women need change and they need a drastic one just like when it is a very sunny and hot day that later changes into pouring rain. Women need funding because they aren’t financially stable but they need a law that can back them up and help them. Women are now allowed to get an abortion but if you read more and more about this you ask yourself, are they really? A decrease in providers and limitations are seen as boundaries that make it harder for them to get this procedure. Although we see now, politics are talking about taking down the Hyde Amendment. When Donald Trump was president, he said that we should put more limitations on abortion, and we should make it illegal. He said that if women do decide to get an abortion, they should be considered criminals. But Hilary Clinton said that this “policy only makes it harder for low-income women to exercise their full rights: “Any right that requires you to take extraordinary measures to access it is no right at all”( Boonstra 1). Ending the Hyde Amendment will help a wide range of poor women get a hold of a “safe and legal abortion care”(Boonstra 1). This is where we see abortion rights movements come into play and argue to change this right because the privileged who have insurance and Medicare benefits from this right but the majority of the women who need an Amendment in favor of helping them don’t have anything that can legally help them. These low-income women are struggling because we see that this Amendment affects people of color and Hispanics because they don’t meet the requirements and, they aren’t financially wealthy, so they end up selling their “personal belongings” (Boonstra 3) or ask their family for aid. This cycle of oh it is legal, but you have to pay, meet requirements, and you need to find a place that provides abortions, and these delays later force her to have an “unintended pregnancy to term”(Boonstra 1). I couldn’t find a specific artist to write about because there wasn’t one that I could find that focused on low-income women who need an abortion but I did find various images that advocate change and marches that women are fighting for healthcare.

Presentation

The choice of life or death of a fetus isn’t easy, especially when either one relies on what sources the soon-to-be mother can get a hold of. There are various ways in which she can decide what she would want to do with her pregnancy, but this all comes back to what she thinks is best based on her situation. Many people may think the obvious thing to do is criticize and pressure women to have the baby even though she isn’t financially, mentally, and physically capable of carrying a living and breathing fetus inside of her for 9 months. Terminating a pregnancy is a procedure that is an option, but its accessibility is very challenging because there are two different sides where they argue and limit a woman’s right. The society that a woman or teenager lives in, builds up boundaries and norms that influence their decision. Abortion is a procedure where a pregnant woman terminates her pregnancy because she either can’t provide for a baby, was sexually assaulted, doesn’t want to have a child, or isn’t ready to become a mother. Depending on what state they live in there are protocols where if the woman is later into her pregnancy, they won’t allow this procedure to be done on her and she is forced to have the child. Everyone views abortion differently where religions, organizations, movements, and opinions are all intertwined and argue against it.  But the truth is that no one can speak for that teenager or woman to decide what to do. With time we see that women are given this option, but low-income women who don’t have any financial help aren’t granted this option so easily. Abortion does come with a high price and it’s very hard to get funding and Medicare/health insurance to cover the medical costs. Women who aren’t financially capable of having a child and want to have an abortion can’t rely on any laws or support because there isn’t any that can guarantee the care that she needs to have this procedure.  

The Master’s Tools

We see that in the essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” by Audre Lorde that she has a conference in NYU but realizes that our society has built up norms of always allowing one color to have more power than the other and she saw many white women in that conference. She advocates the idea that our society is advancing and that it’s important to see both colors united and not separate because we build up this system that divides people because of their color which shouldn’t be done. She wants to unify women of any race or color because this shouldn’t matter. I see that she wants to solve this broken system that we see as something normal to see. I agree with her powerful statement of The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House because we see the ignorance of being privileged because the masters are above everyone and have control over people of color which is what she references in this line. This is a very big problem that she points out in her writing that men are also superior but it’s something that must be talked about and fixed. I think that it’s important to have change and find a positive change in our society where we accept any color or race.

Research Summary

Theirs always two sides in this battle of who is right when to comes to abortion and should it be illegal because you’re killing a developing fetus or should it be legal because some women aren’t financially stable. Some adolescent teenage girls can’t have a child at such a young age that’s why they decide to have an abortion. But I have learned that this topic is very sensitive and there are movements that act against abortion, but I got to learn much more about this topic how these movements affect people lives personally and that even though everyone has her own story every story should be listened to, and respected. It’s crazy how this has led to women hurting themselves and this has also led to people harassing doctors that perform these procedures. This is something that’s very important because as human beings we are seeing this happen right in front of us where there’s a clear way to solve this problem which is to build a system where there’s a law in place that can help low-income women receive funding or aid for this procedure.

The root of this issue is that there aren’t any laws that help cover the cost for these low-income women. This battle with abortion has just begun because the Hyde Amendment does restrict funds to low-income women because there “is still a ban on federal funds to pay for abortions in other circumstances and abortions still cannot be provided at any military treatment facility except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest” (Thompson 2). There are services like “ACA” (Thompson 2) that help provide health care to low-income women, but this service is excluded from this insurance. There is an option in which the state can decide to cover the funds but that is seen rarely because “programs don’t Medicaid programs do not pay for any abortions beyond the Hyde exceptions”(Thompson 3). Limitations are put in place where the state has the last say in providing the funding. The cost of abortion all depends on how far along the woman is if she’s “10 weeks’ gestation is estimated to cost between $400 and $550, whereas an abortion at 20-21 weeks’ gestation is estimated to cost $1,100-$1,650 or more” (Thompson 4). There are additional tests required before commencing the procedure which will require more fees and payments to be done. We see this issue as something that hasn’t been solved and these poor women are the ones who are impacted the most because they end up harming themselves or pay for the procedure but become even more financially unstable.  

The hard truth of this matter is that these women have to deal with this all alone and as much as they try to find help, they don’t find it and in the processing of getting it, they struggle. As a result, they end up harming themselves, having the child or limit their resources to pay for an abortion. When all of this can be avoided if they are provided with a system that can help these women make a decision and not struggle to do it. We need a system where low-income women are understood and are taken care of because they are the only ones that can judge what they decide to do, and it’s important to find an “opening of our hearts, minds, and wallets” (Cohen 3).

This Bridge Called My Back

In The Bridge Called My Back I found it that each poem had their own significance and beautiful meaning. One that stood out to me was called “Wonder Woman” by Genny Lim we see that she uses imagery and I think it’s important because she points out every type of women no matter what race or color or class she is in and she points out that she wonders if we are all alike. A quote from her poem is, “There  are  copper-tanned  women  in  Hyannis  Port  playing  tennis  Women who  eat with  finger  bowls  There  are women  in  factories punching  time  clocks  Women  tired  every  waking  hour of  the  day.” We see that she’s very descriptive in her writing and I just love how straightforward and the details that she puts into her writing its very interesting. This connects the two connection of other essays because she points out powerful women and she seems like she wants to honor everyone women no matter how poor or rich they are which shows how different her poem is and when I read the title, I thought that she was going to talk about a superwoman, but she talked about an enormous number of superwomen. 

Annotated Bibliography

In the first article that’s called “Women Need Greater Access to Abortion” we get to see that women don’t get any funding or Medicaid which can lead them to do self-harm where they drink something toxic or falling down the stairs so that they can have a miscarriage. It is really unfortunate to see that women struggle and it’s really hard to find clinics or hospitals that do these procedures because they are targeted and it’s a risky job that has led to fewer people in this medical field. Another article that I found which was very interesting was one that was a research paper. This research paper was called “Navigating Social and Institutional Obstacles: Low-Income Women Seeking Abortion” where the goal was to see the lack of support and obstacles that women face when did they went along with the procedure, and how low-income women that do have Medicare but they still have to face obstacles. In this project that they did it in Oregon it is legal to get an abortion but many people struggle to get one or they end up trying to get funds to have their procedure, but it takes them a while to get those fund so they end up going into the 2nd trimester trying to get this producer done. Throughout this project, the reader gets to see personal stories and how they face economic struggles. They highlight how women of color, teens, and immigrants struggle to get the care that they are looking for. The last article that helped me learn more about this topic was “Should Access to Abortion Be Restricted?” in this article we get to understand more about the Hyde Amendment where this amendment put restriction and Medicare is allowed to help women who have experienced incest, rape, and if their life is endangered. Even though this Amendment can help some women there is a big percentage of women that don’t count and can’t receive Medicare even though they don’t have a job or aren’t financially stable to have this product which can lead them to self-harm, and this may be the reason that they are having an abortion. These articles were very useful because I got to understand the different struggles that women have to face that they need to either fit into a certain requirement, have to try and fight back to possibly receive help, end up harming themselves and also end up drowning in debt. In both of the books “Abortion” and “Abortion Controversy,” we better understand what abortion is and why some women decide to have one.

Black Feminism

In the movie Black Feminist and in Audre Lorde’s poem “Who said it was simple” they both relate to each other because they bring up this important fact that black women have to work twice as hard and are treated differently because we see race as something that entitles someone to be to treat one another differently. In this poem we see Lorde addresses how women of color are being oppressed and point out the problems that we do not only see in race but in gender too. As stated, when she says “the women rally before they march discussing the problematic girls, they hire to make them free” she’s seen women marching for rights and we see the connection between class and race throughout this stanza. I feel like she points out something very important in this poem where she can’t separate herself from her race and her identity when they both relate to one another. She also seems as though she is mocking them because these women that she sees marching, and rallying are getting benefits from the oppression of others meaning colored people.

In the movie, Black Feminist see that they want the viewers to better understand what black feminism is and how hard it was and still is for women of color. We see that in this movie men are looked up upon but the problem about black feminism isn’t something that is talked about as stated a feminist is “a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” This shows how we see the problem of women being treated differently solely because of their color and race and it’s a very type of “mainstream” because people mostly focus on the privileged class or white women when the bigger issue is seeing and understanding these important advocates that reveal the truth of black feminism.  I feel like they both advocate the idea that racism is a problem and that it’s important to speak out and talk about its importance and understand how significant it was in our history. 

Bibliography

 These sources are reliable because I got access to them at the Brooklyn College Library. They’re very interesting because we get to see how they studied the experiences women had to face when trying to get an abortion. I feel like their very informative and we get to know more and understand different obstacles that these teenage girls or older women face. It’s a topic that various people have their own opinion on it, but I do think that it is important to see both sides of the argument. 

Sources: 

Almond, Lucinda. The Abortion Controversy . Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. Print.

  French, Kathy. “Abortion.” Sexual Health. Oxford, UK: Wiley‐Blackwell, 2009. 137–154. Web.

Fried, Marlene Gerber. “Women Need Greater Access to Abortion.” Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950-2000, edited by Lynette Knapp, 2001. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010034217/OVIC?u=cuny_broo39667&sid=OVIC&xid=1640b4d8. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021. 

Ostrach, Bayla, and Melissa Cheyney. “Navigating Social and Institutional Obstacles: Low- Income Women Seeking Abortion.” Qualitative health research 24.7 (2014): 1006–1017. Web.

Thompson, Tamara, editor. “Preface to ‘Should Access to Abortion Be Restricted?”.” Abortion, Greenhaven Press, Farmington Hills, MI, 2015. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010946105/OVIC?u=cuny_broo39667&sid=OVIC&xid=70d9a5ac. Accessed 6 Apr. 2021. 

Independent Project Work Plan

How have low-income women struggled to get an abortion?/Women who have low-income have struggled to get access to get an abortion.

I need to know what women have faced when they are trying to get an abortion and what ways has this affected them mentally, physically, and emotionally. I also need to research and understand other stories about how hard it is to find a healthcare worker that can perform this procedure. It’s also important if I look into the pro-choice movements and how they make it harder for women to receive funding. I think that my topic can be categorized as news/event, and gender. I feel like we always see this controversial topic in the news, and I think it can also be classified as gender because women usually are told what to do by men in this situation.

Intersectional Analysis

Chandra Wilson is an American actress and director. She is well known for her fictional role in Grey’s Anatomy where she plays Doctor Miranda Bailey. We see that she faces challenges because of her color and race, it’s hard for her to treat her patients because some are racist. She’s an extraordinary general surgeon on this show and even though she does have to battle her battles with a strong voice, and she has to keep her head up she accomplished so many surgeries and became the chief surgeon of the hospital. She now is in a position where she has a lot of power but is very wise with her choices and puts her patients first. There was a scene in the show where she was trying to provide proper care to a patient but she’s an African American surgeon and the patient didn’t want to be touched or treated by her which made it harder on her. Her role as Miranda Bailey shows how strong and powerful a woman can be no matter their identity and that even though she is short she stands up strong and tall she truly is a hero.