Sexual and Reproductive Dimensions of Women’s Health

Introduction

Changes occur in the society to inform the legislations that govern the sexual and reproductive health of women. Activists have fought for modification of legislations in order to ensure that women get access to safe and quality health care services at all time. The current freedom and rights that women enjoy were unavailable in previous years such as 1960 (LaRosa, Alexander, & Bader, 2016). Therefore, in case I lived and gotten pregnant in 1960, my choices would have been restricted to carrying the pregnancy to term, adoption of the delivered baby or risking an illegal abortion. I would have an option of maintaining the pregnancy for nine months and delivering the baby. Alongside the term delivery, I would involve the child adoption services in case I was not ready to become a parent.

Conversely, I would face challenges in procuring a safe abortion since legislation did not favor abortion practices in the country during this era. For instance, abortion was illegal in the United States in 1960s and the Congress passed the Hyde Amendment law in 1973 to prohibit use of state funds to pay for abortion expenses unless when the life of the expectant woman was at risk (LaRosa et al., 2016). Therefore, I would have limited chances of procuring safe abortion regardless of my concerns about the pregnancy. Besides, the U.S. Congress legalized abortion in 1973 on the basis of the women’s right to privacy in the Roe v. Wade legislation by the Supreme Court (LaRosa et al., 2016). In this case, the current situation is different since women across various states have access to safe abortion services that include different surgical and medical methods of abortion.