Submitted by Nicole Danna and Natalie Tuttle

“Pregnant? You have options” could be a slogan on the door of a bathroom stall in Ireland or it could be the mantra of thousands of family-planning clinics across America.

Before going any further, we would like to begin by making something clear: We are not “pro-abortion.” We do, however, appreciate women’s right to choose, and apparently millions of other women feel similarly. That being said, let’s continue.

First of all, has abortion really been popularized in secular America? Absolutely not. Think about it. Do you see positive imagery concerning abortions anywhere in American society? No. The idea that abortion has become popular within secular America is outrageous and unfounded. There is no more societal pressure to abort a fetus in the United States than there is in Ireland, where Loras sends students every year to study abroad.

The existence of a law does not create societal pressure — a society does. Societal pressures on women to not give birth at a young age include things like wanting to attend college full time and break into the career world among others, and those pressures exist in every society — not just here in America.

Here are some facts: A woman’s right to choose has been legal in the United States since Roe v. Wade was up held by the Supreme Court in 1973. Since then the U.S. has gone through one of the most politically conservative periods in history. Not even did the mighty hero of the conservatives, Ronald Reagan, could counteract the outcome of Roe v. Wade; neither did either of the Bush administrations nullify it. The fact remains that the right to choose is legal because it is an issue of women’s health. Were it not available in a safe, medical environment, we would see a return to “back-alley” abortions, which sometimes result in death, even today for countless women worldwide.

Secondly, is it really “having options”

if the only option presented is adoption? One of the most amazing features of being an American woman is that we have real options, and that federally funded health care is available to provide us information about all our choices so that we may make the best one for ourselves. These places provide comprehensive information about all options to be considered by a pregnant woman.

It is interesting that Ireland, where the vast majority of people are Catholic, strongly promotes the idea of women’s health by including the health of an unborn child. So does America’s. There are no family-planning clinics in America telling women to just take care of themselves and forget the health of their baby.

When consulting a physician — even a Planned Parenthood physician — the second a woman has made the decision to take a pregnancy to term, they begin receiving information about their prenatal regiment to ensure the health of themselves and their unborn child.

The fact that we have government-funded family-planning clinics that relay all of the options to all Americans serves as evidence that our government truly provides a “state-funded vehicle for the health of the mother and her child.”