Published in The Laconia Daily Sun 9-16-2016 http://www.laconiadailysun.com/opinion/letters/98116-james-veverka-9-16-715
To the Editor,
Well, well, well, the hornets are out but they still have no stingers. It is certainly interesting how conservatives missed the point of my letter (aside from some obligatory trolling and kicking over a nest). What I said about the rights of the fetus was not made up by me but was based on the rulings of the United States Supreme Court since 1973. Did someone miss that? When people start yelling murderers and killers, there is no reason to be polite. Playing hardball is necessary. Personhood laws have all been struck down by the courts. Did you miss that? I didn't make those court rulings. I also don't see any ovens burning given it has been the law of the land for 43 years. Personhood laws have been struck down by the courts in Oklahoma, Colorado, and North Dakota. Personhood amendments in several states never got enough signatures to appear on the ballot. Although Mississippi's initiative did make the ballot in November of 2011, it failed 59 to 41 percent. No ovens in Mississippi yet.
Russ Wiles seems to think its good that liberal views are out there. Well, we agree since we have always won culture war battles in the end due to our voices. Look how bad the right failed on marriage equality. They may rely on their barbaric old religions of middle eastern desert tribes to enable their bigotry and patriarchy but they still lost.
What the right wing is clueless about is why they fail so miserably to legislate women's bodies no matter how obtusely accusative they get (murderers!). Nobody wants there to be abortions. Nobody is pro-abortion and right wingers are certainly not pro-life given that they vote for politicians more apt to value war, the death penalty, cutting food stamps and welfare for poor families, oppose equal rights for all, teach abstinence-only magic dust, and attack open access to contraceptives and healthcare. The Republican Party platform is an anti-family, anti-worker, anti-science basket of manure and if you vote Republican you are not really pro-life or pro-people
The only way abortion can be addressed to end the vain war on abortion itself and increase access to reproductive healthcare, family planning, sex-ed, and contraception. Abortions and teen pregnancies are at all time lows now and it has nothing to do with extreme right wing policies. Increased access to family planning and contraceptives is what has brought us to the record low in abortions and teen pregnancies. UPI ran an article last week that reported "Declines in rates of teen pregnancy and birth in the United States are being driven entirely by significant increases of contraceptive use, researchers at the Guttmacher Institute report in a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health." On the other hand, Slate reported, "one 2015 study found that between 1.7 and 4.1 percent of the state’s [Texas] women aged 18 to 49 have attempted to self-terminate a pregnancy using herbs, teas, vitamins, caffeine, alcohol, drugs, abdominal trauma, or a medical abortion pill (misoprostol) obtained on the black market or from a Mexican pharmacy. The [Google] searches Stephens-Davidowitz analyzed reveal other specific, disturbing methods: in that there were more than 700,000 Google searches looking into self-induced abortions in 2015. The 700,000 searches included about 160,000 asking how to get abortion pills through unofficial channels—searches like “buy abortion pills online” and “free abortion pills."
Listen righty, we all want there to be fewer unplanned pregnancies and abortions but your way of freaking out (murderers!) is going nowhere. Making up lies about Planned Parenthood ended up increasing support. Thank you! If you really are pro-life you need to change your ways and start supporting harm reduction policies. The war on drugs is just like the war on abortion. Its can't be won your way. Harm reduction policies are the way to go. Voting for politicians that don't even oppose abortion in the cases of rape, certain death of the mother, and incest is madness. Anti-choice laws don't stop abortion. They are not pro-life because they make it far more dangerous and danger doesn't stop people, does it? The Washington Post has reported that defunding Planned Parenthood would actually increase abortions. AP reported in 2015, "Nearly six in 10 Americans — 58% — now think abortion should be legal in most or all cases," so Harry's numbers are wrong. Sorry about those facts, kids
James Veverka
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