Letters to the editor June 2

It's about controlling women

Make no mistake: opposition to legal abortion is about controlling women, taking women’s rights away and imposing religious law. If we follow this anti-abortion movement to its logical conclusion, women will be compelled to have babies and will lose the autonomy and equality they have worked so hard to achieve.

Women have worked hard for equal rights in this country, but it’s become clear to me how precarious rights are. They can be taken away in a moment. Women only got the right to have their own credit card without their husband’s signature in 1974.

Many who oppose legal abortion cite their religion. One of the founding principles of this country is the separation of church and state. Those who wish to restrict the right to abortion are attempting to impose their religious law on other citizens. They may couch their opposition to legal abortion in terms of “pro-life,” but they are actually “pro-birth” and pro-suppression of women’s rights, and the movement has nothing pro-life about it. They would actually confer greater rights on a rapist or family member committing incest than on a woman who has been victimized.

If abortion becomes illegal, will those who oppose legal abortion step up to pay for the mother’s health care? For her food and housing? For her education so she can create a better life for her child and not be dependent on the government? Will they step up to pay for those children’s food and housing and education until they are age 18? I don’t believe that anyone makes the decision to have an abortion easily. A woman makes that decision based on what she knows is best for her, her health and her own family planning in consultation with her own doctor. It should not be made more difficult by politicians who would force a woman to have a baby but care nothing about her circumstances or the consequences.

— Mary Hodges, Charlo