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Say YES to Prop 3
When a need arises in life, I rely on people who are experts in their field. If the house is on fire, I don’t call my township supervisor. I call my fire department. If I have a leaking pipe, I don’t call the union offices – I call my plumber. Similarly, when I battled cervical cancer and, later, infertility I went to the experts: my doctors. I am the expert in deciding what my body needs, and my team of well-trained medical doctors have always had the freedom to help me handle my health care decisions.
Prop 3 is not solely an “abortion amendment.” It is about Reproductive Freedom in ALL its forms. A ‘yes” vote will help insure care for infertility, prenatal care, pregnancy, miscarriage, labor & delivery, contraception to allow for healthy timing of children for the mother (and father), post-natal care, sterilization for those who desire it, and yes, abortion. I hope if you are confused by the language that you will do your research and see it for what it is: an opportunity to protect a wide array of reproduction freedom and choice.
Please do not throw reproductive freedom out with the geysers of misinformation and misogyny underlying the abortion debate. We cannot afford to hamstring women (in particular) with situations that would arise if Prop 3 fails to pass. Outlawing abortion and the other reproductive freedoms we have enjoyed in my lifetime will never end the need for abortion. It will simply drive it back into the dark ages, and it will directly cause a rise in the miseries and abuses experienced by unwanted children.
I am in favor of a society that helps build lives that can flourish because every child is wanted. No one should have to bear children until they are ready. As a society, we are diverse; the differences among us demand that different people have various options. This makes space for different CHOICES. I wouldn’t personally choose to have an abortion, but to me, a law that outlaws it for every woman and girl (especially without exception) is a murderous mistake in its own right.
Please don’t feel like you have to vote the way your pastor or husband/family commands. A “yes” vote on Prop 3 will help everyone have the chance to choose reproductive freedoms that we can discuss with our doctors, not our legislators.
Kate Dernocoeur
Lowell, Michigan
I voted no and encourage others to do the same. My children are my children and
I do not, I repeat do not want my parental rights taken away from me, that would be communistic.
Your right to choose to have a child ends when you choose to have sex, nobody has the right to choose to murder.
The problem with voting yes on Proposal 3 is that you are voting for an EXTREME amendment to our State Constitution. If passed under the guise of reproductive freedom, it will be the most extreme in our entire United States on par with North Korea and China. It can allow parental rights to vanish in regard to their minor child having an abortion, sterilization or sex change surgery. It can allow an unlicensed person to perform an abortion with no safeguards or repurcussions if botched. It is surprising to me that Pro-choice people are willing to put women in danger this way? Isn’t back alley abortions one of their sticking points? Women can and are having abortions legally in Michigan now. Voting no on proposal 3 does not mean you are removing those rights. Women still have the right to choose. However, it does means you are expanding rights enshrined in our State Constitution, to include abortion up to 9 months of viability or birth, removing parental rights and allowing unlicensed person to perform abortion. I don’t call that “safeguarding” women.
If people don’t want to have unexpected children the easy answer is abstinence or birth control.