Defend women’s rights while there’s still time

Since Roe v.Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, I have been saying that it is only the beginning of a war against women and our rights. It is proving to be true. First we lost the right to control our own bodies and pregnancies and now the far right GOP is getting even more personal with our reproductive rights. The ruling in Alabama stating that an embryo is a child and has the same rights as a child is devastating to those who are using IVF to have children.

IVF is science based and some embryos are either not viable long term or will produce children with horrendous birth defects. In the past, those damaged embryos would simply be discarded. Now, those embryos cannot be destroyed without risking legal penalties for killing a child. How absurd, how ridiculous and how dangerous. The fact that the judge cited the Bible in his ruling is beyond incredible and dead wrong. Do we really want laws to be based on religious beliefs? What if Muslim judges start ruling according to the Koran, is that acceptable? We can see what happens when religion rules a country. Look at Iran and Afghanistan.

There are also over a dozen states that now want to restrict birth control. We must all see that these laws are about controlling women, not protecting babies. These ultra-religious right-wing men want the ability to control what all woman can and cannot do, and it will continue to get worse if we don’t stop it now. They seem to want to keep us “barefoot and pregnant,” cooking their meals, washing their clothes and doing whatever the men want in the bedroom.

These attempts are heading toward returning to medieval times when women had no rights and were totally at the mercy of men. Women and reasonable men must wake up, see what’s happening and vote out these extremists who only want power over more than half the population in our country. Defend our rights so we don’t lose even more.

Cyndi Kehoe

Elk Grove Village