Brunswick Beacon, 09.29.22
In 1973, Roe v. Wade guaranteed your constitutional right to privacy. Before then, the government made the most personal decision of a woman’s life: whether to carry a pregnancy to term.
Single women with unwanted pregnancies were shamed and shunned. If they couldn’t find doctors willing to perform abortions, they risked death getting unsafe abortions from unqualified hacks, or were forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. What then? Unwanted marriage? The stigma and poverty of unwed motherhood? Who decides?
A married woman’s life could be ruined by an unplanned pregnancy. Educational and employment opportunities? Her health, the welfare of her other children, the stability of her marriage? All threatened. Who decides?
States that ban abortion typically provide the least help to families with disabled children. Should a woman carry a severely disabled fetus to term? Who decides?
Abortions had become safe, legal, and rare. Last year’s rate was less than half what it was in 1980. Seventy-nine percent of abortions are performed before 10 weeks gestation. Most Americans agreed that Roe was right; this most personal decision should be made by the woman herself, not the government.
Then, in June, five radical Republican Supreme Court Justices threw out decades of precedent, overturned Roe v. Wade, and gutted your constitutional right to privacy. Justice Thomas even said the Court should reconsider your right to birth control!
Will states be able to preserve a woman’s right to choose? Not if Republicans win. Ted Budd, David Rouzer, and 164 radical Republican extremists cosponsored H.R.1011, declaring every fertilized egg a “preborn human person.” It bans abortion nationwide. In vitro fertilization, which typically discards unused fertilized eggs, would become murder.
Elect Democrats Cheri Beasley, Charles Graham, and Eric Terashima. It could be your last chance to decide.
Nancy Briganti
Carolina Shores