Elizabeth (Zib) Corell lives in Concord.

I and most of my siblings were born in the 1950s. As a product of the Depression, my mother raised her four daughters to get a good education so we could have jobs and income from them to have our own money and be independent. We embraced those goals along with many other women, seeking our own credit history, getting a fair wage and having a voice in the workplace.

Many of these goals are still aspirations, with some women continuing the fight to be taken seriously in the workplace. And many have succeeded at being at the boardroom table, becoming elected to office, or providing medical care as doctors.

After all of these advances, imagine the gut punch when the Dobbs decision took away the rights of women to seek abortions. Some politicians decided women didn’t deserve to make their own reproductive rights choices. They could fly into space, perform surgery and head up multimillion-dollar enterprises. But they couldn’t be trusted to decide what happens in their own uterus. It didn’t matter if the time for another child was wrong or the pregnancy presented health risks.

The audacity of these (mostly) men making women second-class citizens through their actions. Two generations of women have stepped out of the kitchen, become educated and trained to contribute to the economy. Women have no interest in being forced into a life where child-rearing takes precedence over their lives. Most want a balanced life of work and family. We know that many Republican leaders have no intention of stopping with abortion rights. They have birth control in their crosshairs. A return to the 1950s is what they seem to envision.

Keep this in mind when you go to the polls on Nov. 5. Your choice of president is important, and it is also important that you pick a governor with a record of support for women making their own decisions about abortion. Republicans will not fight for us. We need House and Senate members serving in our State House who respect women and stay out of our bedroom decisions.

We only need to look at Idaho and Florida to recognize that states have taken control of women’s rights. Don’t let that happen in New Hampshire. Or our ‘Live Free’ moniker will only apply to the male population.