Over 380,000 Missourians signed a petition to put Amendment 3 to a vote of the people. If passed, it will restore reproductive decision-making in Missouri to where it belongs: the person who is pregnant, with input from her doctor, her family, her own conscience and her own beliefs.
The attempts by Republicans to keep this off the ballot, and the fact that we have a draconian abortion ban right now, is not really about protecting babies. It's about controlling women and girls.
If someone really believes that a full human life with all the rights of a person begins at conception, then they logically would advocate that many forms of birth control should not be allowed. They'd insist that IVF treatments that end in destroying embryos should be illegal, too. They would hold funerals every time someone has a miscarriage. But we don't do those things, not even in Missouri.
People are also reading…
Before we vote to keep others from making their own medical and moral decisions, we should ask ourselves why not. I believe it is because the vast majority of us recognize that there is a huge difference between an embryo or nonviable fetus and a human being with rights. We also recognize that a pregnant woman or girl is a human being with her own rights.
And finally, even if we think we know "when life begins," we realize we could be wrong, so it shouldn't be our decision to make for someone else.
We've heard a lot about the unintended consequences of Missouri's cruel abortion ban to doctors and patients dealing with medical emergencies, pregnancy from rape or incest, and nonviable pregnancies. I ask you to consider why we have this ban in the first place. Vote Yes on Amendment 3.
Lisa M. Hummel
University City