Time for women to be written into the Constitution. It can start locally.: Letters

Time for women to be written into the Constitution

June 24 — Open letter to Sen. Susan Collins:

Today’s ruling is very disturbing however predictable as women living in the United States will no longer be able to choose their destiny or take ownership of their health. Maternal and infant deaths are both lower than when abortion was illegal. Today we step back as a society.

I am a 66-year-old female in a male-dominated profession. I respect you in your effort to lead Maine in the welfare of its citizens. Yet, your decision on Justice Kavanaugh is partly the reason Roe v. Wade was overturned today. The makeup of the justices we now have and will have for some time have ruled on the matter pertaining to a woman's right to choose. They partly claim that the word "abortion" is not in the Constitution. However, the word "woman" is certainly not in much of it if at all. The interpretation of using only language that was envisioned by the founding "fathers” and therefore should be the end all is simply not fair. We women do exist. We vote. We deserve to be healthy and to be able to raise and support families.

Forcing a woman to have an unwanted child from rape, incest or due to poverty is inhumane to that woman and to society as a whole. Unwanted pregnancies that will be carried to term is something no man in our society has had or will ever have to endure. They will not be burdened. Where does this stop? Contraception, medical abortion, and in vitro fertilization must remain options. "Women" must be embedded into the language of the Constitution.

I implore you to reach out to all women and men in the Senate and House and draft a constitutional amendment that states "women have the same rights, benefits and protections as men and therefore are fully incorporated into the Constitution and are to be recognized as equal to men in every respect and for any and all cases that find their way before the courts." Let's have the state of Maine lead on this! Please do not let down the women in our state and country. We would need two-thirds of the states to ratify, but if acknowledging women is not something the United States can agree on, I'm not sure what is. Please consider this an urgent appeal. Let's do what we can to protect women and women's health. Without women, there are no families.

Lucinda Schlaffer, Kittery Point, Maine

Who is risking lives for votes?

June 27 — To the Editor:

Can you believe the New Hampshire legislature passed bills seriously reducing firearm risks, and the governor vetoed them?

Now, a bill is coming to his desk concerning a "red flag" proposal. Another, is in the wings, “open carry on ATVs", what sort of state is this? Is getting votes for a fourth term in Concord worth risking lives?

Live free and die…. may be more than a New Hampshire slogan!

David Lincoln, York, Maine

Abortion providers are heroes

June 24 — To the Editor:

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. I’m devastated, I’m hurt, I’m scared, and I’m grateful for Granite State abortion providers.

In our state, abortion remains safe and legal before 24 weeks — for now — but that doesn’t mean the day to day of abortion providers will remain the same. This ruling will begin a ripple effect — abortion bans across the country will push people out of their home states seeking care, if they can afford it. For northern New England, the ripple effect means that abortion providers could see an increase of patients seeking care, which could tax already existing health care services and lead to greater wait times for all care.

New Hampshire abortion providers do everything they can to ensure that every patient who seeks an abortion can get one. They provide access to safe and legal abortion, help patients navigate care, and ensure people seeking abortion have medically accurate information.

It is time to loudly and proudly support the people who have abortions and the medical professionals who deliver that critical care. I’m urging you to fund local abortion providers, donate to your local abortion funds, tell your own abortion story, and listen deeply to the stories of people you love.

Emma Theriault, South Hampton

The Supreme Court is partisan on purpose

June 24 — To the Editor:

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that we have to have nine Supreme Court Justices. Nor would it require a Constitutional amendment to add more seats. In fact, Congress has expanded the Supreme Court five times throughout American history.

Congress should use its constitutional authority to rebalance the Supreme Court, which has been taken over by a supermajority that holds extreme views outside of the mainstream of legal thought and out of step with most Americans. That’s why Congress must pass the Judiciary Act, which would add four seats to the Supreme Court and help stem the right-wing supermajority’s attacks on our fundamental freedoms, including the right to access abortion care.

There’s nothing stopping Congress from adding justices—except for the political will to do it, of course. In fact, recent polling showed that the majority of the American voters they represent support expanding the court. That’s why I’m urging Congress to pass to support the Judiciary Act of 2021 and add four seats to the Supreme Court.

Michal Poynter, Stratham

Pregnancy would change minds

June 24 — To the Editor:

If men became pregnant, abortion would be the new Second Amendment.

Joe Arnstein, Portsmouth

Susan Collins is not my senator

June 25 — To the Editor:

Sen. Susan Collins, from Maine, now blames the two obviously anti-abortion Supreme Court justices for not being truthful during their confirmation hearings. Susan, you are to be blamed, for ever believing them. We told you so. Thank God we have Janet Mills as our governor. Susan Collins is not my senator!

Georgia Bennett, York, Maine

Response to Rep. Pappas

June 25 — Dear Representative Pappas:

I appreciate your prompt response to my concerns about the high price of gasoline and other fossil fuels. In your response, you express a willingness to use “every tool available to bring down the costs for families for families and small businesses." I hope this includes advocating for the Biden administration to reduce impediments currently placed on fossil fuel producers (e.g. the cancellation of leases on government lands, the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline, etc.). While the objective of harnessing natural energy resources (e.g. solar and wind) is a laudable long-term goal, crippling our current reliance on fossil fuels before the new technology is a proven and reliable substitute is a major strategic error.

This policy reminds me of a quote from a book written by Henry Hazlitt several years ago, “Economics in One Lesson." While this opinion is written about economists at the time, it is very relevant to our current situation. To paraphrase: the Biden administration is pursuing the fallacy of overlooking the secondary consequences of following the dictates of certain special groups while ignoring the effects on the whole community.

Even ignoring the adverse impact on the environment on the mining of the rare earth materials that are critical elements in the production of wind and solar units, it is not clear when (if ever) these energy sources will be a reliable substitute for our current fossil fuel powered energy. Ignoring that reality has greatly contributed to our current adverse inflationary environment.

Tom Steele, Rye

Abortion and anti-abortion states in a civil war

June 26 — To the Editor:

Many people are writing about the Supreme Court decision and women’s rights. I have a beef with it that I find equally troubling. You quote Rep. Osborne, R- Auburn, as saying “returning complete authority over abortion to the states where it belongs is a great triumph for Federalism.” 100% incorrect. Federalists were the ones advocating for more federal authority saying that states had joined together in a Union when they ratified the Constitution. Anti-Federalists advocated that the states were sovereign entities that could have radically different policies regarding slavery and taxation.

More: Will NH, Maine see abortion patients from out of state? Providers are 'committed' to help

'This is a dark day': Seacoast, NH and Maine leaders react to Roe v. Wade being overturned

The headline on today’s article was about whether northern New England will become an abortion destination. The answer, of course, is yes, but only for people with money. Dig deeper and the question becomes: Are the abortion states and anti-abortion states now in a civil war that mirrors the one we fought over slavery? That war was fundamentally about Union vs. Nullification. Though I wouldn’t expect armies in the field in pitched battles, the answer is yes.

The country has fallen into dis-union (anti-Federalism), this time with encouragement from radicals (Chief Justice Roberts is the only conservative) on the highest court in the land. Unbelievable!

Jeffrey Cooper, Portsmouth

The other victim is the court itself

June 26 — To the Editor:

Knowing the decision was coming, and even knowing the form it would take, hardly lessened the blow. The Supreme Court's opinion takes 79 pages to tell us a handful of things:

That a right that was fundamental and rooted in the Constitution for 49 years is neither fundamental nor “found in the Constitution.”

That the state legislatures will have to decide, one-by-one across the deeply divided landscape of the nation, the extent to which pregnant women will be regulated and controlled in respect to this most intimate and often excruciatingly difficult time in their lives.

Importantly, that court review of the decisions of those legislatures will be exceptionally deferential, subject to the least rigorous, least searching, least skeptical of the judicial tests, so-called “rational basis review” – the same test used to evaluate legislative imposition of price controls on agricultural goods.

In the end, this last point may end up being the most important, because the five-member majority is plainly telling legislatures that the field is clear, and that the lower courts will not have much of any basis to contradict what the legislatures decide. If the state legislature decides that the termination of a pregnancy is unlawful from conception, and a criminal offense thereafter, the Supreme Court has already pre-signaled its review and tacit order to the lower courts to stand down and defer to the legislative majorities in the various states. In Oklahoma and at least several other states, this will mean that once a women is pregnant, the state will take nearly plenary control over her body, her personal decision-making in respect to her job, family planning and the economics of her home, her relationship with her ob-gyn, and the next many years of her life. A pregnant woman, in this regime, is simply separated and unequal.

Reproductive choice advocates will do a better job of detailing the consequences of such laws than I can. This letter focuses instead on the other victim of the Dobbs decision and the five-member majority’s decision to countermand what was on Thursday the law of the land – the court itself. Since the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, public confidence in the court has waned, as so-called conservatives in the Senate imposed on the court a political hack — once part of Ken Starr’s team, who railed against “the Clintons” at his confirmation hearing — and an inexperienced culture warrior — who never tried a case to a court or jury, or argued a case on appeal, and who now sits in judgment of everyone who has. The public knows that Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, at least, effectively lied to the Senate about the value of long-established precedents in our system of law. And the public knows that they delivered on the tacit promises made to their supporters in carrying out one of the most momentous reversals of policy and rule of law stability in the long history of the court.

We now understand that the court is simply about numbers — if you have five, your view can win, however untethered to the Constitution and to precedent your policy might be. This same court, only a few days before Dobbs, determined that the First Amendment’s free exercise clause trumped the erstwhile co-equal textual commitment against government establishment of religion. This is the same Court that only the day before Dobbs struck down a law that stood for 109 years in New York relating to the licensure of firearms. No overarching principle weaves these three cases together, except the political preferences of a majority consumed with remaking the law, irrespective of the consequences to religion or public safety or women’s lives and reproductive liberty and citizenship.

And who will believe such a court when it says that cases about the regulation of contraception, the decriminalization of same-sex relationships, and the sanctity of same-sex marriage are not next in line for de-constitutionalization. Indeed, one-fifth of the five member majority brazenly says that Griswold (contraception) and Lawrence (criminal sodomy laws), and Obergefell (same sex marriage) should be “reconsidered.” After 49 years of status as a “fundamental constitutional right,” swept away at the first opportunity when the court’s membership was right enough and ideological enough, who can believe that this isn’t a court ready to sacrifice principle and the stability that underlies the law to serve an ideological agenda that tosses women back to the 1950s, or relegates LGBTQ people to the back of society’s bus, and elevates the free exercise of religion to a place where public tax dollars are used to pay tuition at schools that promote those things.

Christopher Cole, Portsmouth

GOP for dummies

June 26 — To the Editor:

Anyone you love or know hurt by this Republican platform?

No women’s rights.

No voting rights.

No LGBTQ rights.

No marriage equality.

No right to privacy

SCOTUS justices who lie under oath and are religion, radical, right-wing driven.

No documented history in classrooms.

No classic books (or gay teachers) in classrooms.

Racism for all.

Religions promoting hate for all.

White nationalism for all.

Conspiracies and FAUX FOX for all.

All guns all the time for all ages, stages and rages.

How about electing folks who gave you Social Security, Medicare, unemployment compensation, civil rights, NATO, women’s vote, student loans, Peace Corps, equal pay, veteran’s benefits and, maybe, 50 other initiatives you’ve depended on. They’re called Democrats and, no matter how old you are, they’ve been making your life better whether you voted for them or not!

Carol Selsberg, Eliot, Maine

We cannot trust Sununu

June 26 — To the Editor:

Last week’s overturning of Roe brings renewed focus on the importance of having a governor and state legislature that will protect our most basic rights.

Sadly, Gov. Chris Sununu has proven he can not be trusted in this regard. He signed a drastic abortion ban that (at the time) did not even include exemptions for fetal anomalies. It still has no exemptions for rape or incest.

Gov. Sununu likes to claim he is pro-choice, but recently crowed about his anti-choice achievements on a podcast.

We can not trust his word or leave our most essential rights in his keeping. It’s time to return the Democrats to power.

Laura Rundell and Andy Holtz, Dover

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Time for women to be written into the Constitution: Letters to editor