Current Events/Sociology 1 Running Head: CURRENT EVENTS/SOCIOLOGY

Current Events/Sociology Students Name: Institution of Learning: Instructors Name: Course Name:

Current Events/Sociology 2 Sociology is simply termed as an advancing science that examines the general way of life of human beings. Sociology analyses key behaviors, the organization and the general course of development in the human society. Sociology analysts draw from trends occurring within the society or society segments so as to give an indication of how that society behaves. Sociology attempts to give an explanation on how certain issues happen in the society and why those issues are happening and at times offer solution for such issues by referring to past trends. This paper applies the processes of sociological analysis on a current event so as to understand why it event happened and draw general implications to the society as a whole. This paper looks at an article titled women in Texas losing options for health care in abortion fight, by authors Pam Belluck and Emily Ramshaw. The article is titled Women In Texas Losing Options For Health Care In Abortion Fight was published on the seventh o f March, 2012 (Belluck & Ramshaw, 2012). The article counts how the recent legislation to cut spending on womens health care has affected the lives of women in Texas, who are dependent on these services. The article mentions that the most clinics have closed down since October last year such as the Planned Parenthood Clinic located in San Carlos in South Texas. According to the article, the financial cuts have greatly affected the lives of Texas women who are mostly low income earners and have left them with huge financial bills. The article reacts is also a reaction to the scheduled closure of the Medicaid womens health program that grants 130 000 women to access services in the reproductive health clinics. The authors write that Governor Rick Perry announced recently that there were plans to forgo $35 million dollars that is used to finance the healthcare program. This decision is an offshoot from the debate centered around the Republican presidential campaigns, on the issue of family planning. According to the authors, even though there are legal regulations in Texas that restricts women clinics that perform abortions from benefiting from this fund

Current Events/Sociology 3 still, the governor and the republicans have decide to take this measure. The main aim is to cut out the Planned Parenthood Clinics from accessing the funds since they perform abortions in their clinics. The republican presidential candidate has come out in plain opposition to financing Planned Parenthood which offers abortion services country wide (Belluck & Ramshaw, 2012). However, these decisions have taken a toll on the provision of other womens healthcare services who are not able to afford these services at other clinics. This article also reports that the situation is expected to gate worse from the recent bill presented by Mitt Romney in February 2012 that proposes to eliminate the Title X program that provides the same funding as the medic aid. In fact since this bill was presented , there have been several state legislations that have been proposed to cut Planned Parenthood out of this financing. As the battle rags on between the politicians countless women are stuck with huge bills in terms of accessing the health care services they need. This debate to cut on family planning spending is also highlighted in another article by Stephanie Coontz titled On Womens Day, A Reality Check was published in the CNN Opinion. The author describes it as a move to stifle the progress women have made in the emancipation. As evidenced from the Texas point of view these legislations have immense impacts on the societal front (Coontz, 2012). The issue on cutting on the federal governments spending in womens healthcare programs has some significance to the social construction theory. Social constructionism projects the individual thinking processes as the views of the society. This theory holds that reality is a result of the interaction between people. The idea to cut on spending has elicited several reactions among women and opinion makers on the subject. Collectively, these groups argue that making such huge decisions on behalf on women is undermining the progress they have made in the past 100 years. Moreover, this issue is viewed by most women as a move to undermine three

Current Events/Sociology 4 choices interms of their bodies and whether or not theory wants to have children (Andersen & Taylor, 2012). Under the social stratification perspective this issue has been translated as the undermining of women, especially those who are on the lower end of the economic spectrum. Moreover, the fact that the legislature is opting to cut out these services for women indicates that there is still some discrimination against women. Even though significant progress has been made, there is still inequality in the decision making process. Furthermore, by shutting down the programs low income earning women suffer since they cannot afford these services elsewhere. Looking at the whole debate on family planning cuts from a social control angle one discovers that the government is enforcing something that is not a reflection of the society. By making such decisions like cutting the Medicaid programs in Texas shows that the legislature does not really care for the ordinary American women. Furthermore, why the decision to cut women health care program wile there are other options in terms of other programs to cut spending that have lesser impacts. Further queries arise as to how this choice came about. Even though such decisions are aimed at stifling abortion there could be other ways to go round the subject without compromising other essential reproductive health services. (Newman, 2010) The issue of social crime and deviance is not so manifested in this situation though it could be a ripple effect from such legislation. What the legislation proposes is to cut out on services that are essential to women, specifically, the abortion services. The problem might arise when these women decide to look for theses services outside the mainstream methods. Moreover, ethically reviewing the decision to cut Medicaid also is a crime to the many women who depend on these subsidized services to access the essential health services (Giddens & Griffiths, 2006).

Current Events/Sociology 5 Sociology in the analysis of certain decisions that are critical to the society. The issue of family planning has been debated for so many years now and throughout the debate there have been numerous hardliner positions taken by various groups. Certainly, the analysis of this issue brings out certain angles that need to be revisited such as the overall consequences of the budget cuts. Moreover, there could be social repercussions such as the increased cases in ailments related to women since most of them cannot afford the services. Furthermore, those who are on treatment may also miss their treatment causing a reoccurrence of symptoms.

Current Events/Sociology 6 References Andersen, M. L., & Taylor, H. F. (2012). Sociology: The Essentials. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. Belluck, P., & Ramshaw, E. (2012, March 07). Women in Texas Losing Options for Health Care in Abortion Fight. Retrieved March 09, 2012, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/us/texas-womens-clinics-retreat-as-finances-are cut.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me Coontz, S. (2012, March 08). On Women's Day, a reality check. Retrieved March 09, 2012, from CNN Opinion: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/08/opinion/coontz-women-day/index.html Giddens, A., & Griffiths, S. (2006). Sociology. Bristol : Polity Press. Newman, D. M. (2010). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, Brief Edition. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press.