Story of a Bill: The Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002
In the beginning of this Benchmark, I didn’t really know what I wanted to research. I was interested in legislation that protected wildlife or any other type of animal, but then I ran across the Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002. As I continued to read more about it, I became more and more intrigued in the bill. Before researching my bill for this Benchmark, I had no idea that born alive infants had rights. I chose the Born Alive Infant Protection Act because it was a law that I, initially, knew nothing about. I chose it out of my curiosity and desire to explore to new things.
I chose to present my findings on a website. I was originally going to make a movie, but I realized that this would have taken more work and time to produce. I chose to use create a website instead because I can manipulate and modify it more easily and can still incorporate the visual element by embedding videos on it. I feel like a website is as fun and engaging as a movie, but it is easier to make.
During the course of this benchmark, I had a lot of other projects due for my other classes. Since my website was not due for a while, compared to my other assignments, I tended to push it back. I would get some things done, but would focus more on the other assignments. I feel like the other work that I had on the side took some of my work time for the website away. I overcame this, however, by completing small parts of the website at a time. I would assign myself to create, for example, the summary of the bill on day, and then the timeline another. I divided the task in bits, and finished it gradually.
If I could do this project a second time, I would try to complete this website earlier. I would have also tried to be more creative with the website. I would have added more hyperlinks to the text of the website so that people could have easy referral to the meanings or history of the some of the words that I incorporate in these passages. I would try to make the website more interactive and “clickable”.
The research that I did on my bill showed me a lot about the creation process of this bill. Abortion is a pretty touchy subject in America. Some people believe in pro-choice and some in pro-life. Some don’t know how they feel towards abortion. The process of this bill’s transformation into a law was a rocky one. The first time it was introduced to the house, there was an objection by a group of people because of “discrepancies” In the language of the bill. My thinking is that the people who objected to the bill let their personal bias towards abortion get in the way of their voting of the legislation-because they did not agree with abortion, they did not vote for the bill. The bill went through the house, to senate, and finally to the president the second time it was introduced to the house. The language was changed and the majority of the representatives voted yes to the bill. This time, however, the House consisted of different representatives. The research I did taught me that process of turning a bill to a law can sometimes be a rocky one because of the bias that representatives and senate members have towards the subject of the bill.
When I first read about the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, I assumed that it had gotten through the house and senate pretty easily. I thought that it was a pretty reasonable law, considering that the infants were indeed alive and were humans entitled to their rights. Even the most avid Pro-choice supporters sided with this bill. Then I found out that it was not as easy as I thought it was. As mentioned before, the bill did not get through the house the first time and had to be reintroduced to the house a second time. It was only on the second time, when the language was modified to meet the opposer’s requests that it was passed. It was a pretty tedious process.Here is the link to my website.
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