Letter to the editor: Abortion is a woman's issue

New anti-abortion laws in Louisiana criminalize women who have miscarriages with suspicion of crimes that potentially carry the death penalty. Five to 25% of all pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriage. These are devastating events for the women involved. Now these women are going to be put through more trauma!

One of the issues with so-called “late-term” abortions is that if a fetus dies in the third trimester, failure to remove the decaying fetus can cause sepsis and death of the mother. Some new anti-abortion bills do not make exceptions for these circumstances because the medical procedures for these terminations are essentially classified as “abortions.” An unborn fetus shouldn’t have the same right as the living mother or living child.

It is appalling that Republicans want women to bear children in all cases, but then refuse to pass any legislation that provides help for these fetuses once they become living children. Sure sounds pro-life to me!

This is a woman’s issue and should be the sole domain of women, not old white men. It is all about control and putting women in roles of slave and handmaid, a role I believe one Supreme Court justice proudly holds in an extreme Catholic cult.

Elizabeth Veronica Weaver

Hempfield