Letter: No one owns a woman's body except the woman herself

Posted 5/17/22

To the editor:

The writing is on the wall: the US Supreme Court will issue its opinion overturning Roe v. Wade next month. The time is now to act in Rhode Island to do all we can to protect each …

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Letter: No one owns a woman's body except the woman herself

Posted

To the editor:

The writing is on the wall: the US Supreme Court will issue its opinion overturning Roe v. Wade next month.  The time is now to act in Rhode Island to do all we can to protect each woman's fundamental liberty interest in controlling her own body, which includes access to reproductive healthcare, and her right to equality in reproductive healthcare.  We must pass H 7442: "Equality in Abortion Coverage."  Currently, RI has a shameful system of banning abortion coverage in the healthcare it provides its State employees and in the healthcare it provides its Medicaid recipients.  It is unconscionable that we single out and stigmatize women who work hard for our State government and women who work hard but happen to be in an income bracket below 250% of the federal poverty level. Why should State government workers be counted as "lesser than" and stigmatized and given substandard health insurance? Why should other women who work hard in other industries, but just don't make very much money, be stigmatized by not being provided adequate health coverage?  It is not OK and, given the Dobbs opinion which is about to be issued, it is time to stand up and fight for actual equality in healthcare for all women. In RI, we have a long tradition of recognizing fundamental liberty interests when others could not.  We have the Independent Man standing at the top of our State House to remind us that we stand up for liberty and separation of church and state.  And we need to stand up proudly for liberty now: which means standing up for the freedom from church and state control over women. No one owns a woman's body except the woman herself.  Women have a fundamental liberty interest in owning and controlling the integrity of their own bodies. It is time to say: "Enough! Women are people."

Susannah Holloway

Barrington

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