Norden letter: Abortion
State Senator Dan Foreman (R-Moscow) wants to criminalize a freedom enjoyed for their full lifetimes by all American women age 43 and younger. He wants to punish the exercise of this freedom with life in prison, and — unless he specifies otherwise — possibly also the death penalty.
Some people believe they have special access to God’s will, and claim the messianic power to instruct others in how they should live, and what laws they must bow to. Sensibly, most Americans — including the Founding Fathers themselves — distrust such claims. The default is individual liberty, except for infringing on other citizens’ rights.
The romance of religious belief notwithstanding, a pregnant American woman is one citizen, not two, and should not be made property of either government or church because of her future potential to give birth. If a woman miscarries — as many do naturally in the early months of a pregnancy — will she be obliged to prove the miscarriage was not induced, lacking which prison or death? This sort of overwrought patriarchal control game shocks and saddens us when we see it enforced by the Taliban, ISIS or Boko Haram, and we rightly denounce it as medieval and barbaric. It has no place in modern America.
Chris Norden, Moscow
This story was originally published January 28, 2017 at 11:44 PM with the headline "Norden letter: Abortion."