Student name Jasandeep kour (10130109)
Student name Jasandeep kour (10130109)
ENG100 A
Intructor Garrett peck
Date 24oct 2022
Abortion Rights in the United States
News of arrival of baby is no more full of joys in United States. As per The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, science of medicine is not subjective and hence, it can be a medical necessity. This brings to knowledge the abortion rights as a necessity for mother many times. It cannot be certainly called as the intentional murder as it quoted by many. In June, 2022, US overturned its judgement of the Roe vs Wade case enshrining the right of women to abort their child as per their choice. Eralier this case was focused on allowing teenage girls to get a right to abortion to avoid or delay marriages and also to stay safe from shotgun marriages. This right was being debated for long but feminist movement failed when legislature passed three anti-abortion laws. In more than 13 states there has been full ban placed on 15, 18 and 20 weeks of pregnancy. This caused outrage in the country since this is being debated as a discrimination against women to which this paper argues (New York Times). This paper argues the abortions rights not only from medical or pyshcological perspectives but also from human rights perspectives making it their right to choice. This is important because women is not a mere carrier of womb, she is a human first. Also, fertility rates are found to be higher in countries with higher abortion restrictions which also makes this judgement a poor decision in terms of rationality (Dwivedi). Ban on abortion rights in states is violation to women rights threatening their safety, causing gender inequality and negative consequences throughout their lives making their lives hard.
Womens rights are harmed by ban on abortion rights in states. Women have a moral right to decide what to do with their bodies, it is the. Violations of this women's right are specifically connected to being female, as only women are going to suffer with this law. It is a kind of gender abuse. Abortion and medication services are restricted to some clinics, which will be made these services inaccessible for most women. In addition, as more states require parental involvement, women under the age of 18 have experienced growing obstacles to their autonomy and access to private abortion procedures.Women have to face administrative obstacles that prevent them from getting abortions including state legislation requiring waiting periods, parental consent, and the absence of doctors who perform abortions.There is more and more evidence that shows being a woman is life-threatening.Women are prone to experience sexual abuse, torture, humiliation, and even murder, all these are violations of womens human rights (Harper).These wrongdoings take place everywhere, including the workplace, the home, the streets, jails, and refugee camps. Maintaining such political ties at home, at work, and in all public forums is fundamentally dependent on violence against women. The failure to recognize sexism and violence against women as political forms of oppression also results in their exclusion from the human rights agenda (Dwivedi).
The ban on abortion rights for women represents gender inequality.Access to abortion care is a vital part of reproductive justice, as well as fair and just. This right in lieu of free choice is being debated in media. The right to abortion should be a part of a portfolio of pregnancy rights that allows women to take a free choice whether to end the pregnancy or not. It is the right of women to get a timely abortion because when women are able to end undesired pregnancies as soon as possible and under secure medical supervision, lives are saved (Wilkison). This crisis only exists for women since men cannot be carrier of babies.Instead of allowing the political and cultural assault against women to continue, the government must work to put a stop to it (Bunch et al.). This clearly causes extra struggle for women causing gender inequality. Every state has a duty to step in when women's rights are being violated within its borders and to stop working with groups that commit similar crimes abroad.Women are not only embryo-bearers who can be subject to these laws so that the state can defend what is perceived as another life borne. A ban on abortion robs the woman of all self-determination (Tunc). Concerns about an unborn child take precedence over her own body and decisions.This concept of a woman's freedom to abortion or contraception, which some refer to as "voluntary motherhood," is more than just a bold feminist demand for equality in work and reproduction. The freedom a woman must have to make decisions about her own body (Dwivedi)
The overturns of Roe vs Wade by the Supreme Court decision that made abortion illegal is going to create a lot of problem in the future. Losing of the right to abortion will endanger the lives of women, as in the absence of any legal assistance and clinical specialist to support women's decision to abort the baby. Women will find some illegal way to abortion and will try to end the pregnancy without the help of doctors whether through the help of medications, drugs, alcohol, or self-harm. Women will go to the states where abortion is legal but again here it is not possible for poor women who cannot afford the expenses of abortion by going to some other states. For society to function there must be safe, inexpensive, and reachable abortive procedures otherwise it is going to put the lives of women in danger.The act might make it harder for women to support their children and might lead to more abortions. There are various reasons when women unintentionally become pregnant, and it is not always preventable. Therefore, even with the development of better means of contraception, abortion will remain a crucial aspect of women's health care.Additionally, in the future, refusing maternal treatment may constitute child abuse as well as fetal abuse at a later stage of pregnancy or after birth.This law is likely to bring voices that are more conservative and they definitely will oppose the abortion laws in their own country. This law is going to affect women worldwide as the United States being the most influential country whose rules and regulations are followed by other countries too specifically African countries (Jaicomo et al.) This does not limit to the medical conseuqnces or psychological conseuqnces for women, but also their survival on whole. Their work life and careers are automatically at stake when the government support is not present. The situations of abortion can vary including where many women might have to raise the kids alone in absence of father. But unfortunately, the things cannot be turned otherwise for their own betterment due to state enforcement which is unfair (Dwivedi).
On whole, the ban on abortion rights of women in United states is totally unfair. Women hold a better chance to live their lives as per their terms since they are humans first. The extra added struggle for women is going to cause them medical consequences including death due to unsafe abortion procedures they might pursue since they cant do it legally. The women around the world could also be negatively impacted psychologically and demotivated to indulge in family planning especially in states. Women are not mere carrier of wombs and should not be treated like ones.
Work Cited
Bunch, Charlotte. Womens Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-Vision of Human Rights. Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 4, 1990, pp. 48698. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/762496. Accessed 24 Oct. 2022.
Dwivedi, Vineeta. The US Abortion ruling is a blow to womens right everywhere. Livemint. 28 June 2022, https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/the-us-abortion-ruling-is-a-blow-to-women-s-rights-everywhere-11656348633111.htmlHarper, Cynthia & Henderson, Jillian &Darney, Philip. (2005). Abortion in the United States. Annual review of public health. 26. 501-12. 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.26.021304.144351.
Jaicomo, Patrick, And Anya Bidwell. Recalibrating Qualified Immunity: How Tanzin V. Tanvir, Taylor V. Riojas, And Mccoy V. Alamu Signal The Supreme Courts Discomfort With The Doctrine Of Qualified Immunity. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), vol. 112, no. 1, 2022, pp. 10544. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48646136. Accessed 24 Oct. 2022.
New York Times. Tracking the States Where Abortion Is Now Banned. 13 October 2022. Accessed 23 October 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html
Tunc, TanferEminPrenatal politics: fetal surgery, abortionand disability rights in the United States, The New Bioethics, 27:4, 334-348, DOI:10.1080/20502877.2021.1981043
Wilkison, Barbara. Restrictive State Abortion Bans A Reproductive Injustice. The New England Journal of Medicine. 31 March, 2022. https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp2119364?articleTools=true
Alexander College
ENGL 100 (Section)
Student Name (Student Number)
Garrett Peck, Instructor
Date
A Nation that Forgets its Past has No Future: The Story of Comfort Women
No evidence you say? Im the evidence! This is a quote from I Can Speak (2017), a Korean movie made based on true events. It is testimony that Lee Yong-soo, one of the surviving comfort women, said at the trial that expressed the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces' coercion of young women into sexual slavery (H.Res.121) in the United States Congress as a witness. Comfort women were young girls who were forced to be sex slaves by the Japanese government during World War II, and Based on fascistic statism, racism, and sexism, it regarded the comfort women as considerate gifts to the emperors warriors for recreational sex (Soh, The Comfort Women 31). Young girls had to endure the painful routine of being sexually abused everyday by Japanese soldiers from morning to evening, and up to 200,000 women, the majority of whom were Korean, were forced to provide sex to Japans military forces (Ward and Lay 225). One of Japan and Koreas major areas of conflict is Japans failure to admit faults regarding the use of comfort women during WWII. I believe Japan should take responsibility by sincerely apologizing and compensating the victims and this will hopefully act as a foundation on which resolution to other controversial topics between these two countries can be built.
Relating to the topic, on January 8 2021, the Seoul Central District Court passed the ruling expressing that compensation should be given to twelve of the victims, and for six women who had passed away during the process would be represented by their families. Each are to receive 100 million won ($91,800) and the judge of this trial, Jeong-gon Kim, said, The court recognizes that the accused committed illegal acts and that the plaintiffs suffered extreme psychological and physical pain hard to imagine (qtd. in Choe South Korean Court Orders). The recognition for comfort women in South Korea has been acknowledged since 1991, when Kim Hak-sun (1924-1997) became the first Korean woman to give public testimony of her life as a former ianfu (Soh, Japans National 209). Since then, there have been reparations from Japan, but there has never been a sincere apology that the victims could accept. Dating back to the start of a petition for this trial in 2013, it has taken eight years to make a step towards closure. The court had accepted the request in 2016, but because the Japanese government did not cooperate, it was after four years when the trial started in April 2020, with the absence of Japanese representatives (Ahn). The passing of this ruling is important and meaningful as it is the first compensation suit that was passed by the Korean court against the Japanese government.
The Japanese government and the citizens have a visibly different perspective towards the controversy about comfort women, and there are two main reasons why the Japanese government rejected the recent ruling. Primarily, it is because of the 2015 agreement on comfort women between South Korea and Japan. The 2015 agreement was an announcement from the foreign ministers from both countries, containing the following circumstances, an apology and $8.3 million payment that would provide care for the women (Choe Japan and South Korea Settle). This agreement is considered unacceptable in South Korea, as it was settled by a corrupt government and did not include any of the wishes of the surviving victims. Another reason is because Japan states that under international law, the principle of sovereign immunity can be applied to this case, invalidating the recent South Korean ruling against Japan. As Toshimitsu Motegi, Japans Minister of Foreign Affairs stated, The ruling clearly goes against international law and an agreement between the Japanese and South Korean governments. It is extremely regrettable and utterly unacceptable, (qtd. in Japan Urges). In addition, because the Japanese government have been downplaying shameful episodes in history education (Dierkes 104), many of Japanese citizens are unaware of their history as the culprit, and Japans immoral actions further extend by suppressing other countries textbook content. In 2015, it was revealed that American historians were receiving pressure from Prime Minister Shinzo Abes government to play down the armys use of comfort women during World War II (Fifield), attempting to whitewash their shameful history. This is an unacceptable way for Japan to deal with its history as by whitewashing its war crimes, the situation will get forgotten to the rest of the world while the victims would still be suffering.
There is undeniable evidence of Japans war crimes on sexual slavery that demand a serious apology. There are victims from other countries such as mainland China, Taiwan, Southeast Asian countries and they were forced to perform different inhuman barbaric atrocities (28 Li). The victims have testified as witness various times, and Japans war crimes on women have been acknowledged internationally when the United States Congress passed the HR121 resolution in 2007. The bill states:
Expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the government of Japan should: (1) formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility for its Imperial Armed Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery (comfort women) during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II; (2) have this official and public apology presented by the Prime Minister of Japan; (3) refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the comfort women never occurred; and (4) educate current and future generations about this crime while following the international community's recommendations with respect to the comfort women. (H.Res.121)
As Japans war crimes on the use of comfort women has been exposed and declared internationally, the Japanese government can no longer make unreasonable excuses to reduce its responsibilities as a war criminal.
When the ruling was passed on January 8, the Prime Minister of Japan, Suga Yoshihide, stated South Korea should take steps to correct violations of international law and that the ruling will never be accepted (qtd. in Shin). However, South Korea is not violating international law as an international treaty is an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law (Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties). Therefore, as the 2015 agreement between South Korea and Japan did not exist in a written form, it is classified as an agreement, not a treaty, allowing a chance for renegotiation. In addition, according to the judge of this trial, Jeong-gon Kim, the existence of comfort women was a crime against humanity that was systematically, deliberately and extensively committed by Japan in breach of international norms and refuted the Prime Minister of Japans claims by saying even if it was a countrys sovereign act, state immunity cannot be applied as it was committed against our citizens on the Korean peninsula that was illegally occupied by Japan (qtd. in Agrawal). For these reasons, Japans refutations to South Koreas recent ruling can be disproven.
The conflict between South Korea and Japan about comfort women can be solved by the Japanese government admitting to its faults and compensating according to the comfort womens wishes. Japans attitude towards comfort women should be respectful instead of treating this issue as a bothersome occurrence. One of the survivors, Bok-Dong Kim said in an interview, They should say, What we did was completely wrong, and well correct our history textbooks. And say to us, We sincerely apologize (Kim 14:28-14:38). To add to her opinion, on a recent press conference, Lee Yong-soo, one of the surviving victims said, Theres not much time. My last wish is for the president, our government, to seek a judgment by international law, so that I have something to say when I die and meet other survivors. (Kim) and referred the ICJ (International Court of Justice) as a way to settle this issue. Reflecting on the victims wishes, the Japanese government should pay reparations to the remaining survivors, give a sincere, official apology from Japanese government officials, and correct their history textbooks with more emphasis on their war crimes against comfort women.
Like Korea was with Japan, Poland was colonized by Germany during WWII, and have been in a similar situation as in historical conflict between the dominating country and the colonized country. However, the modern relations between two countries differ as the dominating country Germany, had took responsibility of its faults and tried to record their history with transparency. As one of their efforts to rebuild their trust with one another, the countries co-published a history textbook which German historians incorporated more of their Polish colleagues research into the key scholarly debates over modern history (He 92). Although this kind of approach may be hard to accomplish between Japan and South Korea, it is a long journey that we will have to go through to make sure every woman who were victims are acknowledged and receive apologies along with compensation from the Japanese government. As Shin Suk-ok said in her debate with extreme rightist Japanese politicians, An apology is only meaningful when the receiving end is convinced of its genuineness. You cant say I already apologized and demand the other to accept it (The Reason Why 0:55-1:05).
Works Cited
Agrawal, Ananaya. South Korea Court Orders Japan to Compensate Sex Abuse Victims from Wartime Brothels. Jurist, 9 Jan. 2021, www.jurist.org/news/2021/01/south-korea-court-orders-japan-to-compensate-sex-abuse-victims-from-wartime-brothels.
Ahn, Sung-mi. Court Ruling on Comfort Women Cases Imminent. The Korea Herald, 4 Jan. 2021, www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210104000881.
Candelaria, Nash. Literature About Nineteenth-Century Chicanos: One Writers Viewpoint. Bilingual Review / La Revista Bilinge, vol. 21, no. 1, 1996, pp. 3341. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25745313. Accessed 28 Mar. 2021.
Choe, Sang-Hun. Japan and South Korea Settle Dispute Over Wartime Comfort Women. The New York Times, 29 Dec. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/world/asia/comfort-women-south-korea-japan.html.
---. South Korean Court Orders Japan to Pay Compensation for Wartime Sexual Slavery. The New York Times, 13 Jan. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/world/asia/south-korea-comfort-women-japan.html.
Dierkes, Julian Beatus. Postwar History Education in Japan and the Germanys. Abingdon-United Kingdom, United Kingdom, Routledge, 2010.
Fifield, Anna. U.S. Academics Condemn Japanese Efforts to Revise History of 'Comfort Women'. The Washington Post, WP Company, 9 Feb. 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/american-academics-condemn-japanese-efforts-to-revise-history-of-comfort-women/2015/02/09/e795fc1c-38f0-408f-954a-7f989779770a_story.html.
He, Yinan. The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German-Polish Relations Since World War II. Cambridge UP, 2009.
Japan Urges South Korea to Immediately Act after Comfort Women Ruling Is Finalized. The Japan Times, 23 Jan. 2021, www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/01/23/national/japan-south-korea-comfort-women-ruling.
Kim Tong-Hyung. S. Korean Sexual Slavery Survivor Wants UN Court Judgment. ABC News, 16 Feb. 2021, https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/korean-sexual-slavery-survivor-court-judgment-75917190.
Li, Hongxi. The Extreme Secrecy of the Japanese Armys Comfort Women System. Chinese Studies in History, vol. 53, no. 1, 2019, pp. 2840. Crossref, doi:10.1080/00094633.2019.1682376.
Life as a Comfort Woman: Story of Kim Bok-Dong | Stay Curious #9. YouTube, uploaded by Stephen Park, 28 Oct. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsT97ax_Xb0&t=885s.
Soh, Sarah C. Japan's National/Asian Women's Fund for Comfort Women. Pacific Affairs, vol. 76, no. 2, 2003, pp. 209233. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40024391. Accessed 24 Mar. 2021.
---. The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Southbound TV. The Reason Why Korea and Japan Cannot Reconcile Their Historical Issues. YouTube, uploaded by Kang Myung Seok, 18 Feb. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1UosEdsni8&t=59s.
United Nations. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties Treaty Series, vol. 1155, p. 331, 23 May 1969.
https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf. PDF file.
United States, Congress. H.Res.121. Government of Japan Should Formally Acknowledge, 2007, Library of Congress, https://www.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/house-resolution/121/summary/36.
Ward, Thomas J., and William D. Lay. The Comfort Women Controversy: Not Over Yet. East Asia, vol. 33, no. 4, 2016, pp. 25569. Crossref, doi:10.1007/s12140-016-9260- z.
ENG. 100 Research Paper Self-Editing Checklist
General formatting questions:
Is your full name, student number, class and section number, date, and instructors name on the draft?
Does the paper have page numbers in the top-right corner?
Is the paper double-spaced?
Is it in 12-point, Times New Roman font?
Is the paper Aligned Left?
Are tutor reports included along with the essay?
Assignment requirement questions:
Is the paper within the requested word count (1200-1500 words)?
Does the paper have a centered, capitalized title that indicates what the essay is about?
Does it have a Works Cited that contains all the sources used in the essay?
Does the essay contain at least 4-7 academic sources? Are they directly quoted in the paper?
Does the essay contain at least 3 news sources? Are they directly quoted in the paper?
Introduction:
Does the essay have an effective hook for the reader?
Does the introduction state clearly what the essay is about?
Does the introduction have a clear, specific, and arguable thesis? Is the writers perspective on this topic made clear to the reader?
Body Paragraphs:
Does each body paragraph have a clear topic sentence that indicates what the main idea of the paragraph is?
Is each topic sentence logically related to the thesis of the essay?
Does the body paragraph develop this main idea using the strategies discussed in Chapter 5?
Are each of the sentences in the body paragraph logically related to the topic sentence?
Does the essay contain a paragraph (or two) of expository writing after the introduction that contains the necessary background information for the reader?
Does the essay contain obvious counter-arguments to the position you have adopted? Are they directly quoted in the paper?
Is each body paragraph well-supported by research evidence (4-6 discrete pieces of information in each body paragraph)? These should not all come from the SAME source
Is MLA citation methodology used consistently throughout?
Does your final draft have somewhere between 5-7 body paragraphs?
Are body paragraphs approximately half a page long?
Conclusion:
Does the conclusion avoid a simple repetition of the main points and thesis statement?
Does the conclusion utilize one of the strategies discussed in Chapter 5?
Proofreading:
Is the essay free of obvious spelling and capitalization errors?
Is the essay mostly free of grammatical, punctuation, and sentence structure errors?
