Bill denies women right to choose
How peculiar that Ohio, once so concerned about the rights of its citizens, even slaves seeking their freedom, is joining the several reactionary states seeking to curtail women’s reproductive rights.
The protest at the Statehouse on Sept. 28 against Ohio Senate Bill 123, ensuring that abortion is made illegal in Ohio, was the first of many.
Senate Bill 123 is a flagrant rejection of women’s rights to ownership over their own bodies. Religious views are irrelevant to this issue (recall separation of church and state?); this is about women’s autonomy. Ohio legislators and supporters publicly catering to right-wing interests is just another conservative movement (such as the Taliban) repressing women.
If the Ohio reactionaries have their way, we will see the return of back-alley abortions, for in every society, there have always been women (and some men) who perform terminations because they recognize women’s right to make personal decisions.
We will also see the resurgence of the underground abortion movement, organized protests unrest from groups supporting low-income women, who will suffer most, and a large number of people who will leave Ohio, which has become stiflingly conservative and opposed to basic human rights. Let’s not become another Texas.
Alden Waitt, Hilliard