E. Scott Cracraft: Women's health care rights, choices must be protected

To The Daily Sun,

Roe vs. Wade has been overturned and women are angry. I understand that anger and it will only get worse. It is easy to blame it on male Republicans but there is a lot of blame to go around. Many privileged, pro-choice, pro-Trump upper middle-class women never thought Roe would be overturned.

Of course, rich women will aways be able to obtain safe, medical abortions. They will either get their doctors to write it up as something else as was the case before Roe or they will have the resources to go wherever abortion legal.

The onus will fall on poor women who cannot afford to get safe, medical abortions. These women will seek the services of unlicensed practitioners or will do it themselves. Many will get infections, be rendered unable to have any children, or will die. How “pro-life” is that? How is it that the most vehement anti-choice people only care about the fetus but not the child they force on the mom? Many do not believe in birth control or sex education which can prevent pregnancies.

When the U.S. Supreme Court makes a ruling, it is usually to expand a right, not to take it away. It is dangerous to take away a right people have come to accept as fundamental. It is as though the First Amendment had been abolished. People will be angry. This a misogynist war on women. Women will resist and disobey any draconian abortion laws. Sometimes, unjust laws must be broken.

Two generations of women have come of age since Roe. Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justices lied under oath that they would not touch this precedent. This is an impeachable offense. For the present, Congress needs to codify Roe into law.

E. Scott Cracraft

Gilford