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Women’s reproductive freedom essential

Let’s be honest about two things: one, the attack on Roe v. Wade is the first step in the attack on the right to privacy growing out of Griswold v. Connecticut. The next step is warrantless searches and the return of sodomy laws and “(n)othing was your own, except a few cubic centimetres in your skull.”

Two, those opposed to a woman’s right to control her own body should be upfront with the fact that, for them, women of childbearing age are little more than ambulatory wombs. Presumably, after menopause women are viewed primarily as grandmothers, or diner waitresses, or herders of cats. Whatever: those opposed to reproductive freedom do not view women as fully autonomous human beings. It’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” made real.

Every single one of you with a uterus should stop for a moment and think about that. For the anti-choice contingent, biology really is destiny.

In a perfect world, a sane one, a woman would be able to choose to maintain her pregnancy, or not, for so long as she was pregnant. No second trimester or eight weeks or “fetal heartbeat” artificial hurdles. She would be able to decide whether to remain pregnant. If she chose to remain pregnant, she would have an obligation to act not to adversely affect the fetus, but that’s it. No other restrictions.

Alas, we do not live in that world. So, we see state legislature after state legislature of mostly old white men fighting to impose the most restrictions on a woman’s autonomy, and female legislators (and governors) willingly throwing their sisters under a bus to do so. It’s cruel, it’s inhuman, and it’s wrong.

CLYDE A SHUMAN

Ossineke

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