Brunswick Beacon, 06.02.22
Before Roe v. Wade, women with life-threatening or unwanted pregnancies face a heart-rending choice because of medical, financial, social or emotional reasons. Desperation led some to illegal, often deadly back-alley abortions. Hopelessness led others, including my friend, to suicide.
Doesn’t anyone remember?
Clearly not the radical right-wing Republican Supreme Court appointees with no appreciation for the sheer, overwhelming terror many pregnant women suffered before winning their freedom to choose.
Clearly not U.S. Rep. David Rouzer, who was still in diapers when Roe recognized women’s reproductive rights. That explains his infantile response to the leaked decision abolishing the right to privacy and overturning Roe. Rouzer was outraged by the leak but giddy at making the sisterhood of women second-class citizens. Again.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, born five years after Roe, cannot remember. His shameless, bullying presidential run is fueled by incendiary abortion lies. He earned the nickname “Gov. Death Sentence” because his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic brought Florida the most deaths and highest mortality rate of any state. He doubled down by signing legislation restricting abortion just fifteen weeks into pregnancy, without exemptions for rape, incest or human trafficking. With a stroke of the pen, he condemned many Florida women to needless suffering and death.
The appalling willingness of right-wing Republicans to abolish the right to privacy shows how radical they are. It’s terrifying to realize that we may lose our privacy rights, which give us the freedom to marry who we want, use contraception, even raise our own children as we choose.
This decision won’t reduce abortions. It will simply make them more deadly. America has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country. Ending abortion services will deprive many women of prenatal healthcare, causing even more shameful, unnecessary deaths.
The radical Republicans responsible are not saving lives. They’re defying the will of two-thirds of Americans and cruelly sacrificing women’s lives.
Linda McConnell Baker
Leland