Reproductive Rights and Welfare as Issues Facing American Families - Essay Example

Reproductive Rights and Welfare as Issues Facing American Families The of the American families face numerous criticalissues today including reproductive rights and welfare. A question of reproductive rights stands primarily about women’s liberty in regulation of childbearing by different means among which abortion is the last one. In this respect, females are seen from two perspectives: ordinary modern women thinking about their life purpose not only within the role of a wife and a mother (the pro-choice movement), and callous selfish killers of kids (the pro-life movement). Families’ welfare is the other challenge of present-day America. In fact, families with low income and poor people are fated to live by scrambling for existence, since in addition to their miserable finances they are not appropriately supported by the US social service that spends many funds for unsound provision of the middle class’s people instead of the poor. In this regard, parents are to earn money in two and more works, while their children spend their days in the streets being off hand and absorbing all possible effects of such a life. Keywords: reproductive rights, welfare. The Literature Review Altmeyer in his work “Social welfare in the United States” argues the state of social welfare in the United States from the perspective of its different components functioning. Analyzing its efficiencies, the author touches questions of government programs, social education, private efforts, public awareness, and unemployment assurance as direct contributors to the level of social welfare, underlining the role of social security programs for maintaining of Americans’ prosperity. Badore (2012), “The reproductive rights movement: 1914-Present”, represents different phases of the reproductive rights movement including such ones as birth control, eugenics in the past and the modern ones of sterilization and abortion. The author makes an emphasis on the consideration of the pro-life and the pro-choice movements in their opposition. Githens (2014) in the “Mercy killing," "reproductive rights" and other ill-conceived liberal phrases” claims that there is no necessity to fight for women’s reproductive rights, since today females are so liberal in their choice of every possible aspect of childbearing. At the same time the author insists that abortion is not a method for birth regulation. Hogue (2014), “If the GOP wins the Senate, expect a total assault on reproductive rights”, depicts the state of the opposition of the pro-choice Democrats and anti-choice Republicans in the Senate on the eve of elections, representing concerns of advocates of abortion rights to become more suppressed in their right for abortion care in the case of Republicans’’ victory. Morgan (2013), “Americas misguided approach to social welfare”, reflects the state of America’s social welfare from the perspective of its almost useless or non-effective efforts to improve people’s prosperity. The work considers the stability of the poors’ miserable position. Poverties.org (2011) in its article “Poverty in the United States, Social welfare vs the market” introduces the problem of America’s poverty at all levels as a direct aftereffect of the system problem and the main cause for further worsening of the economic situation of the country. Poverty is seen as a national threat, which has to be improved by particular ways, such as anti-poverty programs, the labor market, and so on. Reproductive Rights and Welfare as Issues Facing American Families Introduction Among numerous critical issues facing families in present-day America there are such ones causing a great deal of political and ideological debates. In particular, aspects of reproductive rights and closely related to it an issue of people’s welfare are at the heart of current state of American life. Being seen as socially constructed by particular historical and contemporary forces, reproductive rights and welfare of the US population appear to be acute problems that are in need of their urgent solution. Naturally, there is a common point of the two subjects, that is, primary consideration of disadvantaged position of poor families as a socially vulnerable group. The Issue of Reproductive Rights To begin with it must be said that the fight for reproductive rights has a long history, which has passed through several stages in its development on the basis of current peculiarities of the aspect and issues for solution. It is well-known that the beginning of the movement for reproductive rights is considered to come from Women’s Liberation Movement with its key notion of feminism. In fact, there has been an idea of females’ right for choice of their destiny and life purpose stepping over the bounds of their primary role of a wife and a mother. As a result, the whole process has covered numerous aspects of women’s life and touched their understanding of their life goal. They have just looked at their reflection in the mirror in a new light mentioning their power for self-realization not only while being a housewife and caregiver but also being a businesswoman or at least doing real work and getting paid for that. One way or another, females have realized that childbearing is not their only function or the very life goal. In this respect, they have overviewed their attitude towards their reproductive function as well as reproductive rights. In practice, they caught the idea that children have to be born in time when their mothers are ready to take care for them mentally, physically and financially. So, “The movement began with a focus on birth control, but interwove with the eugenics and sterilization movements, and eventually expanded its focus on abortion rights as well” (Badore, 2012). It is obvious that women have decided to control childbearing for achievement their other functions on their way of personal development and personal fulfillment. Certainly, such feminist behavior has been received with great skepticism and disapproval. And the 21th century is not an exception in this regard, since perception of the fight for reproductive rights is still colored in somewhat dark tones due to the fact that the acute aspect of the present-day American women’s advocacy refers to free choice of abortions. Therefore, there are two movements concerning the issue of abortion, that is, pro-choice movement and pro-life one. There is no doubt, any representative does not support or advocate prenatal killing of a child. Nevertheless, pro-choice followers underline an option of termination of pregnancy for avoidance of a child’s further suffering, which may be deprived from happiness in the case of congenital pathologies or abridged of every kind of welfare because of his or her parents’ poverty. Nowadays there are no strict bans for procreation. “American women may reproduce whenever they want to, wherever and with whomever they choose, with as many partners as they wish, married or unmarried, through a sperm donor, in vitro, or surrogate, without any restrictions placed on race, ethnicity, or beliefs” (Githens, 2014). Still, females’ desire to postpone the time of becoming a mother in favor of becoming an independent self-reliant business lady is perceived as an act of selfishness or is considered to be a manifestation of women’s maternal instinct absence. There is also another aspect of the reproductive rights issue, namely: regulation of childbearing by the means of use of contraceptives or abstinence as a part of sex education. However, in the case of pregnancy women and their partners (husbands in our context of family) are to decide the future of their baby. It is not uncommon when parents choose abortion as a way out of unwanted pregnancy, as there are surely particular reasons for such a step. In either case, women may be seen as cruel persons and almost killers in the eyes of the public. The whole thing is that abortions are not accepted as reasonable choice resulted from a particular life situation because of “… individuals whose very ideology is grounded in an idea of women as less than equal citizens, who must be controlled through laws that not only deny us our right to the medical care of our choosing, but also the knowledge that allows us to make informed decisions” (Hogue, 2014). Surely, there is no place for advocacy in favor of universally allowed abortions. Yet, when it comes to financial hardship of socially deprived people, there must be a kind of consideration of an individual case, and whereas a family cannot allow itself to have and keep children, there should be some help on the part of social policy in order to provide appropriate assistance for people in hard circumstances. As for the US legislation on the question of public budgeting of abortions, it does not pass it, and in doing so it limits reproductive rights of women who cannot afford to raise children. In any event, we may see females’ reproductive rights or rather to say their right to regulate their childbearing through abortions to be pressed both by public and due to the absence of appropriate social policy on the part of the US Government. The Issue of Welfare The US people’s welfare is deemed to be the prime objective of governmental policy, since for America as a democratic country its population is the main wealth. Obviously, the key emphasis must be placed on social support for financially deprived groups of people, whose number reaches shocking figures. As an experience of previous years shows, the picture of America’s social insurance is not the same as it must be according to principles of social care for the poor. Instead, there is an evident proof of social security programs’ orientation on help for representatives of middle and upper-middle classes and non-significant help for those people below the poverty line. “…according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in 2010, 10 percent of entitlement spending in the United States went to the top ten percent of households, 58 percent of entitlement spending went to middle-income households, and 32 percent went to the bottom 20 percent” (Morgan, 2013). This is the very point of affirmation of the fact that American programs of social welfare do not work in appropriate way. That is to say, the US social welfare policy does not pay due attention to improvement of poverty state, for its unjust spread of financial help and social guaranties does not correspond to real needs of poor people in general and penurious families in particular. “Since U.S. social welfare spending is not directed primarily at the poor, it does little to reduce the countrys rate of poverty or inequality” (Morgan, 2013). The fact is that unequal state between different classes with its vivid manifestation of privileged and non-privileged positions of the rich and the poor respectively only worsens in the context of lukewarm support of the latter and unsound support of cashed-up people. For that matter, families with low income appear to be one of the most vulnerable social groups. In fact, a great number of American parents face certain socially driven challenges, namely: unemployment or employment in low-paid workplaces, inability to provide their themselves and their children with consistent public health and medical care (as there is no free care in America and even health insurance is to be paid), failure of children’s provision with necessary education, and problems in assistance of both physical and mental development due to the lack of money. The case stands in such a way that families without appropriate financial support or social guaranties are unable on their own account to provide their kids with the means for happy current life as well as for prosperous future. Turning back to the question of abortions in the case of parents’ inability to keep children, there is a particular picture of possible life scenario of a child being born in poverty. Statistics shows that the number of American poor children is great: “With one in four children in poverty and just as many living on food stamps, government welfare proves vital to children across the country” (Poverty in the United States, 2011). In such a context, children from penurious families alongside with their parents suffer from hardships appearing in current challenging circumstances of modern America when people just battle to survive. Under such conditions of extremely high rates of poorness, parents have to work several jobs simultaneously in order to scrape for living. Children in their turn appear to be left alone during the time when their mothers and fathers spend their life earning money for bread and butter. Consequently, very often kids being left without supervision just live in the streets, absorbing both positive and negative effects of such a life style. So, there is nothing surprising in the fact that young people become involved in different occupations, which may even lead them to juvenile residential or cause serious problems for their parents. This is another aspect or disadvantage of governmental policy’s default in social support of financially deprived families. One way or another, there must be certain assistance for such families on the part of the country’s welfare, as it is the minimum that is possible to implement for improvement of poor people’s state as well as for compensation of the US Government’s inability to provide its people with well-paid jobs. Moreover, therein the necessity of family status (with children or with pregnant mothers) to be considered while salary accounting, or at least a kind of help with child-minding in general or day-care in particular may be offered and developed for maintaining of welfare work for families with children. In any case, there must be financial support and social assistance on the part of welfare for poor families. But the fact is that “…employers in this country have never proposed family allowances in lieu of a general wage increase as has been true in a number of other countries” (Altmeyer, n/a). Thus, failing to provide appropriate monetary aid, social guaranties and assistance in upbringing of children, the US welfare work appears to be insufficient for assurance of social safeguard. By its inappropriate spread of social and financial aid, the government just worsens the state of poor families and widens the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged people. Naturally, poverty serves as the most damaging threat for families’ well-being as well as for children’s development. All mentioned above supposes that America’s welfare with its inconsistent provision of social guaranties proves ineffectiveness of its mechanisms, which are to be fundamentally reconsidered in the nearest time. Conclusion To sum it up, American families face numerous socially driven challenges in their everyday life. In particular, reproductive rights and welfare appear to be extremely complicated issues, which add to representation of poor people as an immediate socially vulnerable group. Women fight for their reproductive rights penetrated with feminist ideas and advocate their choice in relation to regulation of their reproductive function with key emphasis placed on abortion as a direct way for childbearing control. America’s welfare in its provision of social guaranties and financial assistance for penurious families proves its insufficiency resulting from ineffectiveness of its helping mechanisms and primary orientation on middle class instead of the poor. All in all, these aspects manifest the current situation of America’s present with numerous questions waiting for their solution. References Altmeyer, A. J. (n/a). Social welfare in the United States. Social Security. Retrieved 17 June from: http://www.ssa.gov/history/aja964.html Badore, A. A. (2012). The reproductive rights movement: 1914-Present. The Cupola, May 5, 2012. Retrieved 17 June from: http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=student_scholarship Githens, A. (2014). "Mercy killing," "reproductive rights" and other ill-conceived liberal phrases. Renew America, May 29, 2014. Retrieved 17 June from: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/githens/140529 Hogue, I. (2014). If the GOP wins the Senate, expect a total assault on reproductive rights. The Nation, October 15, 2014. Retrieved 17 June from: http://www.thenation.com/article/182161/if-gop-wins-senate-expect-total-assault-reproductive-rights# Morgan, K. J. (2013). Americas misguided approach to social welfare. Foreign Affairs, January/ February 2013. Retrieved 17 June from: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2012-12-03/americas-misguided-approach-social-welfare Poverty in the United States, Social welfare vs the market. Poverties.org, May 2011. Retrieved 17 June from: http://www.poverties.org/poverty-in-the-united-states.html Read More