When a pregnant woman has a dead or dying entity in her womb, she needs an abortion to remove it to save her from an infection from the dead tissue. One being may be alive and healthy with the other dead in utero. Myriad other conditions could require this remedy to save a woman’s health or life. If a woman were not pregnant and had a festering wound, she would be by law permitted to refuse treatment for it even if it would kill her, so long as she is competent and not under the influence of drugs or other compromising circumstances. If a person is so high on a drug, belligerent,or violent they have become dangerous to anyone else, the police or another person could kill them in self-defense. If a person had a limb excised because of damage to it, he/she would never be required to carry it around on their person until it rotted away. Why are women with dangerous pregnancies refused the only sane remedy? How can any child be born without women who are free to choose to give life? How is rape a crime but forced pregnancy is not? Freedom means being able to say “no” or “yes.”

Diane M. Starkey

Rochester