If you have had uncomplicated pregnancies and healthy children, opposition to abortion might seem obvious.
But if, like Kate Cox, the Texas woman, who was told by her doctor that she was carrying a fetus with a fatal condition, you had to continue the pregnancy, you might come to a different conclusion. You would have to consider the effect it would have on the rest of your family, for instance. Or if you were told that the pregnancy would endanger your own health or your future ability to have children, that abortion opposition may also feel less firm.
In a situation with an adolescent daughter, in the process of discovering her own identity and sexuality, you were asked for help with her unwanted pregnancy, you would also have a difficult decision to make. Whether that pregnancy was the result of a sexual attack or poor judgment on her part, your answer could affect her life forever.
In any of these circumstances, you may still decide that abortion is out of the question for you, and that would certainly be your right. But would you want the Texas District Attorney, Ken Paxton, or any other government entity, making that decision for you? Or would you consider it a matter of personal and family privacy to make your own health care decisions?
Dorothy Kelly
Warwick