Consider: Women make up half the voters in this state and are as deserving of their rights as any citizen. No rights should ever be taken away from women, especially by the opposite sex and more especially by ignorant men who know very little if anything about woman’s physiology or medicine. But because such men have proudly flexed their political if not their intellectual muscles, we are in the current state of upheaval. Do such politicians and lawmakers know the meaning or complexities that may accompany the terms ectopic pregnancy, placental abruption, preeclampsia in early pregnancy?
There are a host of threats to both fetus and mother that may accompany pregnancy and neither lawmakers nor courts are experts in diagnosing or treating such conditions. That’s why we have medical experts. That’s why, in the past, laws properly assigned medical decisions to medical experts, not to lawyers or citizen lawmakers. That’s the way it should be. Beyond that, who has the right to tell a woman what medical decision she should make regarding her most personal possession, her very body, her very self?
Would you like women making all your decisions for you, governor? I’m sure you would not. Like the majority of Montanans, I support a woman’s right to choose and believe medical facilities that support abortion services must be kept open.
Eugene Beckes
St. Ignatius