Dear Editor,
I believe that women’s health care, including abortion, is a medical issue, and making it into a political issue is a mistake. As Rev. Raphael Warnock, U.S. Senator from the state of Georgia, recently stated, “I happen to think that a patient’s room is too small a place for a woman, her doctor and the U.S. government. I think there’s too many people in the room.”
Consider this: The authoritarian government of a state (think Texas) says that abortion is now illegal there and a woman may not have an abortion.
Or consider this: In a different scenario, the authoritarian government of a state (could also be Texas, at some different time) says that a woman must have an abortion.
This happened in China a few years ago, when the authoritarian government there was limiting population growth. Abortion was enforced if a family already had one child.
Abortion has been enforced in this country as well. In the 1960s many women in the military who became pregnant were forced to resign. Or forced to undergo an abortion.
About 100 years ago, during the so-called eugenics movement, many women were forced to have abortions or were forced to be sterilized. This happened right here in Vermont.
Now I need to “ask for the sale:” If you are planning to vote on Election Day—and I hope you are—please give thoughtful consideration of the candidates before you mark your ballot. If you come across a candidate who says “there needs to be a ban on abortion in this country,” consider that such a stand could also go the other way.
Judith L. Howland,
Hartland
