Letter: Pro-choice

Published 12:15 am Tuesday, October 29, 2024

If you are pro-choice, vote for Astoria City Councilor Andy Davis.

In the 2024 legislative session, along with other anti-abortion Republican colleagues, state Rep. Cyrus Javadi co-sponsored Oregon Senate Bill 1536.

SB 1536 is designed to restrict access to abortion after a 15-week gestational period, with exceptions due to an urgent health need, rape or incest. If you’re following the plight of women in anti-abortion states, you will know that “exceptions” allowing for pregnancy termination are at best dubious, and at worst, lethal.

SB 1536 also states that all abortions involving a health care provider must be reported to the Oregon Health Authority. In other words, should you be able to get an abortion after 15 weeks, your health care decision is on the record.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand how such information might be used, since it’s already happening: the punitive treatment of women seeking or having abortions.

At the Oct. 9 candidates’ forum sponsored by the American Association of University Women — Tillamook, Rep. Javadi was asked if he supported a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health care decisions.

In response, he expressed horror that women in 12 states were facing criminal charges related to their pregnancies, and assured his audience that abortion was still legal in Oregon. He also neglected to say that he co-sponsored SB 1536.

Davis is endorsed by Planned Parenthood. If you believe in a woman’s right to choose, vote for Davis.

KETZEL LEVINE

Nehalem