The cornerstone to the right to an abortion came from the 14th Amendment. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court said at the time, the right to privacy was broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy (The New York Times, May 5).
Florida has some 50 clinics and has been a lifeline to women across the Southeast who wish to terminate their pregnancies. Here is where we are today: Florida recently passed a six-week abortion ban with few exceptions, including for rape, incest, human trafficking and to save the life of the mother. According to Kamala Harris (speech at Girard College), of women of childbearing age, 1 out of 3 overall and half of Black women live in states with abortion bans.
Louisiana just passed a law to prevent the distribution of the widely used and safe (according to the Food and Drug Administration) medical abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol, except by prescription, at the risk of criminal penalties. The state has classified these pills as dangerous controlled substances.
What enrages me is the refusal to acknowledge the emotional and hormonal stress having a baby puts on our bodies, not to mention the cost, which, according to a recent National Public Radio program, is about $3,000 per birth. If Donald Trump is elected and gets his way, a national abortion ban is a virtual certainty. Trump says he will leave the abortion issue up to the states but don’t be fooled. Abortion, contraception and in vitro fertilization are all candidates for national bans on the Republican agenda. When it comes to our reproductive lives, we will be reduced to second-class citizens, returning to our status of 50 years ago. The poor will be forced to have children, and the rest of us will do what we did before, either go overseas or to back alleys. It will no longer be a choice between us and our doctors.
This November’s election will determine whether women in America have control over their reproductive freedom. Our only recourse is to go to the polls and vote against the Republican agenda and take back control of our bodies.
Julia Sperry
Hockessin
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
