As a 70-year-old woman, unintended pregnancy and abortion have been issues of distress and contention for my entire adult life. In high school, I knew three girls who had to “visit their aunts” for six months or so. As a young woman, I struggled to find reliable birth control that didn’t cause unbearable side-effects, worrying constantly about getting pregnant.
So in 1973, when Roe v. Wade made safe abortions legal, I was one of the millions of women celebrating America’s emergence from the Dark Ages. We would no longer be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies, whether the result of a mistake or a rape.
Now Texas lawmakers and their enablers are threatening to return us to pre-Roe v. Wade fear and danger. Well, not all of us, just those of us who can become pregnant.
Women have always needed birth control and abortion, and these are appropriate modern health care, like vaccines and blood transfusions. Just because some people have religious objections to these medical lifesavers they do not have the right to deprive others of access to them. We do not live in a theocracy — yet.
Diane K. Mitchell, Lacey
Discussion about this post