On Monday, January 10, seniors Alex Ostrom and Eli Moog presented during MX about their independent studies. Ostrom’s independent study was about abortion and the history of abortion rights. Moog’s studied US Presidents and the crises that they dealt with. 

Ostrom’s presentation focused on Roe v. Wade, the landmark court case where Norma McCorvey sued to overturn a Texas abortion law preventing pregnant women who are not at risk of losing their lives from getting an abortion. This case, prosecuted by Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, set a precedent for many of the current laws by ruling that the United States Constitution protects a person’s right to privacy, and as such, their right to abortion. 

This ruling has been upheld over the last 50 years, but its vague language involving privacy allowed many states to pass laws effectively banning abortion in most circumstances. States made laws limiting the period in which a woman can get an abortion, requiring spousal notification, eliminating insurance coverage, making women seeking abortion wait 24 hours, and making woman seek counciling beforehand. States and cities also caused clinics to close by adding taxes and requiring special permiting and zoning for abortion clinics, which can be almost impossible to obtain.

Moog’s presentation focused on how the different U.S. Presidents have responded to a variety of crises in the 21st century. In his presentation Moog described the extreme differences in feeling and emotion between when a speech had been worked on for months, like a state of the union address, versus one written 30 minutes prior because of a crisis. Moog expressed how important it is to look at our leaders in terms of how they react to crises, just as much, if not more than in other times. “Crisis defines people,” Moog said.

In the last 25 years, Presidential terms have been defined by the crises of their times. Moog reminded listeners that it is important to remember that things could have been worse if our leaders did not react well under pressure. Over the last 20 years the United States has experienced 9/11, war in the Middle East, the financial crisis, the killing of Osama Bin-Laden, the Sandy Hook school shooting, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The correct management of these crises has been critical to our nation.

Ostrom’s independent study is especially relevant, since Texas recently enacted the most restrictive abortion law ever. The law bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, when most women don’t even know that they are pregnant, as well as empowers private citizens to sue abortion providers, patients, and anyone assisting a patient. This law effectively bans abortions in everything but name. Many have questioned whether this law violates the precedent set by Roe v. Wade and similar cases, leading the Department of Justice to sue Texas over the law. 

Many people fear that with former President Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade could be overturned. According to Ostrom, “if Roe v. Wade is overturned, 26 states will or are very likely to ban abortion.” Other cases about abortion are currently being tried, and ruling on the Texas case has been suspended until these cases are decided. However, the Court has kept the Texas law in place during the interim. This allows Texas to countinue to deny women abortions for the forceable future. 

Ostrom said that her goal “was to gain a deep understanding of the history and present state of abortion rights politics in the United States.” She said that “[she is] pro choice because [she] believes all woman should be able to make their own decisions to have an abortion, no matter what her reason.” She also shared how relevent this is sighting that “one in four women will get an abortion in their lifetime.”

For Moog’s independent study, he looked particularly at speeches that presidents gave during crises. He talked about how, “it is so easy to have the perspective of ‘this is exactly what the person should have done,’ but then you watch [the speeches] 20 years later, even two years later, and you kind of see how everything was so hazy, and how people were not sure what was going on.” Moog also mentioned the importance of where a speech is delivered because a speech that takes place with the President in the Oval Office has a greater impact on viewers than one that takes place in another location. This is often because the Oval Office is associated with a speech addressing an emergency and is often much more somber and apolitical.

The COVID-19 pandemic is another crisis Moog studied. “In wars or terrorism attacks you can blame the enemy, but people blame the US government, they blame China, or whatever, but you can’t blame them,” Moog said. He said he is also concerned about the state of our democracy because “as time goes on we keep getting more partisan and more divided. In 2000, yes, we were a very divided country but we still found a way to come together after 9/11. But also in the financial crisis, when Bush and Obama still found a way to work together. However in COVID it was kind of the opposite, there was a lot of division, the Michigan State Capital was stormed in April, and we also saw it unfold because it was an election year.“ 

Moog voiced concerns about what will happen in the next presidential election. “If you look at the current political environment, it’s very likely that the Republicans will take the House and the Senate, and if Biden wins, I am not sure that the Republican majority would vote to confirm the victory. I don’t know and that is obviously very scary,” Moog said. “The President is as much a leader as a figure head…so former President Trump telling supporters to get boosted is incredibly important, but when he says to get vaccinated in his rallies his supporters don’t cheer, so even though he created the Trump surge in the Republican Party, I am not sure if he is leading it anymore. He calls it the Trump vaccine, but Republicans are by and large the people that are choosing to not get the vaccine.”

Both Moog and Ostrom had Upper School History Teacher Andy Bigelow as their faculty advisor for these studies. They met with him once a week for 30 minutes and talked over what they had learned. Bigelow said that Moog “gave [him] some insight into 9/11 that even though [he] lived through, it [he] hadnt known,” and that Ostrom “got [him] up to speed on the lingo and language about the biology and terminology being used around the topic of abortion.” He also said that “the Morning Ex that the two of them put together was exactly how [he] always remembered Parker’s at their best before the pandemic where MX was overwhelmingly successful and run by students, for students, and very student centered.” He said that this “brought back memories from when [he] first came to Parker and students were constantly putting on MXs about independent studies they had done.” 

Ostrom highly recommended doing an independent study, saying that she “couldn’t recommend an independent study enough. If there is something that interests you then you should do one.”