The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To The Eagle:

Last week marked the first anniversary of the reversal of Roe Vs Wade, which stripped women of the essential 50 year old constitutional right to safe and legal abortion. Access to reproductive healthcare, including abortion and birth control, is a pivotal step on the road to equality for women in this democracy. Over 60% of Americans support the right to a safe and legal abortion.

After Texas banned most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, a new analysis from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that close to 10,000 additional babies were born over a nine-month period.

Giving birth in Texas has become increasingly dangerous. According to the CDC the national maternal rate in 2020 was 24 deaths per 100,000 deliveries. The 2020 rate in Texas was 73, and for Black women it's much higher.

Black and Hispanic women are disproportionately affected by the transformation of what was a constitutional right, into a criminal act. Women’s reproductive healthcare in Texas, or the lack of it in the case of abortion, has become a vehicle of State sanctioned institutional racism.

Women, who would otherwise choose abortion because another child would be a financial disaster, are now being forced into childbirth and into poverty. It’s been determined that women denied access to abortion are four times as likely to live in poverty than those who obtain one. Sometimes, abortion can be the best ‘pro-life’ decision a mother can make.

Politicians and entities that have deprived women of the option to make that choice are “anti- abortion,” not “pro-life.” If Republican conservatives were truly "pro-life," they would not be lobbying against the child tax credit, school lunch and universal day care subsidies, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, universal pre-kindergarten, and Medicaid expansion for prenatal and postpartum care for mothers and children.

We must adopt social, economic, and industrial policies which help families, especially those who are now being forced to bear children against their will. Only then can the Right truly call itself “pro-life” because right now, they are at best “anti-choice” and at worst “pro-birth” while giving absolutely no consideration to quality of life they are forcing upon those babies and their mothers.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island