Letter: Dueling euphemisms on abortion

Herm Faubl, in his recent letter on the Opinion page, accuses pro-choice advocates of using "reproductive health care" as a euphemism for abortion. He is correct in that reproductive health care includes more than abortion. In fact, it covers all health care having to do with a woman's reproductive system, from a girl's first menstrual cycle to a postmenopausal woman, not just pregnant women going for checkups and advice from their male doctors.

Reproductive health care should be available to all women, because it includes checkups, identifies problems and offers counseling so that women are well-informed about their choices. When clinics are closed to deny a woman's access to abortion, this also deprives her of the many services offered that include, but are not limited to, abortion. When state legislatures (and in most states that means predominantly white men) make arbitrary laws to restrict or deny a woman's right to make her own decisions about her reproductive care, they are not thinking of the women who are affected - white, women of color, poor, addicted, homeless, abused, neglected.

They are only concerned about the collection of tissue the pregnant woman carries within. They consider a fetus more important than a person. Those women are persons with lives: they think, feel, love, laugh, cry, create. A fetus doesn't do these things.

A fetus is a potential life, but it is not a person. Keep the fetus safe as long as it's inside the womb. Once it is born, however, that child is on its own, maybe addicted, unwanted, neglected. What about supporting needed services for the mothers and the children they are forced to give birth to?

"Pro-life" is also a euphemism as long as those who are anti-choice stop caring once the child is born.

Katy Berman

Arlington Heights