The Repugnant Party and cruelty

Letter to the editor in today's NY Times:

Re “Abortion Attacks Hurt the Poor,”:

One thing was true in 1956 when I scrabbled together money for a back-alley abortion, and true in 2013 when I listened to dozens of wrenching stories while researching a book on abortion: If you have money, you can access abortion care and other reproductive health needs. If you’re poor, in much of the United States, you can’t.

The stories women told me about being forced to bear a sixth or seventh unplanned and unaffordable child, or about dangerous and desperate efforts to self-abort, would break your heart.

Add to these the suffering of women and men alike denied other services provided by Planned Parenthood — birth control, critically needed medicines, treatment for sexually transmitted disease and cancer screenings — and the cruelty of Republican policies becomes clear.

How much suffering and death will it take for Dr. Dickman’s final sentence to be heard? “In these difficult times, we need to make medical care more available, not less.”

Fran Moreland Johns

San Francisco

The writer is the author of “Perilous Times: An Inside Look at Abortion Before — and After — Roe v. Wade.”

Rob's comment:

Forcing women and girls to have babies is justified on theological grounds---that is, on bullshit.

See also The Cruelty is the Point.