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April 26, 2023 Editor, The News-Gazette: I’m writing to ask people in our community to get the facts on reproductive rights in order to protect the right to choose. We must remember that women’s rights are human rights, that pregnant people’s rights are human rights.
It has been nearly two years since Lexington-Rockbridge-Buena Vista residents gathered to protest the draconian Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court, which referred to fetuses as “unborn human being[s]” in its overthrow of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. More than 150 of us protested on a dripping hot day in our small town to say that we won’t, that we can’t, go back to pre-Roe times, back when the government wouldn’t allow women and other pregnant people to make decisions about their own bodies.
We protested then, and must continue to protest now, the fact that Republican elected officials have imposed abortion bans in 21 states and introduced more than 380 state bills attacking access to reproductive health care. These include the ill-conceived IVF legislation in Alabama and the Arizona abortion ban that would have us roll back civil rights as far as 1864.
We must support candidates at local, state and national levels who support reproductive justice and abortion access. We can take additional actions by visiting the 50 Ways Rockbridge, Indivisible, and ACLU webpages and following their expert advice.
When November comes, I’ll be voting for President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, and Virginia’s 6th District candidate for the House of Representatives, Ken Mitchell, to protect our right to choose. ELLEN MAYOCK Lexington
