The Open Forum An abortion is not health care

Vicki Cowart’s guest commentary left me feeling cold as a pro-life woman. In particular, her use of the phrase, “abortion care,” as if this isn’t an oxymoron. When a young patient received the news the cost of her medication abortion would be $167 after applying grants, Cowart related the patient said, “Yes we can pay $167 — we’ll skip eating today.” Cowart then boasted the values of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains by waiving the charge for the abortion.

If these are the values of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, then it’s clarifying to know Cowart would rather cover the cost of an abortion than be confronted with the truth the patient’s unborn child will never get to eat.

I read with interest Cowart’s article about stopping the degradation of women’s health care. However, I was disappointed when I got to the end of the article and had read nothing that would improve women’s health care. Instead I read Orwellian style language as if it was right out of the novel 1984. “Abortion care” presented as a compassionate medical necessity instead of the sucking out of the womb of a dismembered preborn child.

Sometimes the gift of human life begins at the most unwanted and difficult of times. That does not make it any less valuable, any less deserving to be allowed to live. True quality health care for women is provided by those clinics that help women emotionally, mentally, and physically in their time of crisis. you didn’t get my vote doesn’t mean we’re enemies. You’re elected to represent all of us. So let’s dialogue. I’ll listen. You listen. We’ll meet somewhere in the middle.