A positive, caring approach

When I lived in South Dakota in the 80s, I worked with Birthright, a pro-life pregnancy center. We offered non-judgmental support and alternatives to abortion, caring for women’s needs including baby supplies. I even gave talks on sexual abstinence at area high schools as a preventative approach.
Around that time, I wrote a letter against abortion to South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle. He wrote that he didn’t believe in abortion either but felt it wasn’t the state or the nation’s place/business to legislate it. I was disappointed in his answer.
For many years I voted for pro-life candidates. I didn’t have to think, wrestle with other issues, or consider the candidate’s character. I just checked the boxes that Right to Life told me to check.
But over time I became disillusioned with “pro-life” politicians giving lip service just to get my vote. I don’t like being played. (Trump is currently waffling on this to get votes.1)
Now that abortion is illegal in certain states, women dealing with this very sensitive decision and their doctors are criminalized. Doctors can’t treat mothers with serious complications. As a result, some women will never conceive again or worse–some have died.
Is this really what we want?
Late term abortions are very rare. A woman doesn’t decide at seven, eight or nine months that she doesn’t want the baby. It’s due to a serious medical issue for the mom and/or the infant as with Gracie Ladd from Wisconsin. At 21 weeks, she learned her son had fatal polycystic kidney syndrome, which would also put her health at risk. She went to Chicago for an abortion.2
Minnesota abortion law reforms have been sensationalized.
“The updated Minnesota law still says that any infant born alive shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law … The law now requires ‘all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice … shall be taken by the responsible medical personnel to care for the infant who is born alive.’
What that means is that families and physicians decide together how best to proceed.
Instead of being required by the state to have an infant with severe anomalies undergo extraordinary and futile medical care, parents in Minnesota can now hold their dying infant to say goodbye.” 3
Making abortion illegal doesn’t solve the problem. I now agree with what Senator Daschle wrote to me. It is not the state or the nation’s business. There are things that people on both sides of the issue can agree on for solutions. I appreciate Birthright’s caring, positive approach.
I also appreciate Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s positive, caring approach, using unity, hope, science and truth to address problems.
Sources:
• www.axios.com/2024/10/02/trump-abortion-2024-harris-vance
• www.channel3000.com/news/it-was-a-living-nightmare-wisconsin-woman-had-t...
• 3   Sept. 8, 2024, Minnesota Star Tribune, page A12
Melanie Dobson is a former newspaper editor and a resident of Dodge Center