This commentary is by Nicholas Boke, a freelance writer and international education consultant who lives in Chester.
Vermont’s right-to-lifers are it again. I’m not sure why conservatives have taken to setting up euphemistically named organizations these days.
The anti-Critical Race Theory folks (who did not seem to actually know much about CRT) hid behind Vermonters for Vermont.
Now, the right-to-lifers have set up Vermonters for Good Government.
It’s worth noting that the people promoting Vermont’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment (Article 22/Proposal 5) to the state constitution do so openly, as Vermont for Reproductive Liberty.
But maybe I’m just quibbling.
Whatever the reason, the apparently well-funded amendment opponents, led by a longstanding right-to-lifer, state legislator Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, continue to pass along misinformation about what the amendment would set in motion.
These days, they’re passing along this misinformation to a lot of people.
The nearby Unitarian Universalist church recently received a letter urging the congregation to discuss the amendment, send postcards to locals, and raise money, emphasizing how “extreme” the amendment is. (And if they’re reaching out to Unitarian Universalists, you can be pretty sure that every sort of congregation in Vermont received such a letter.)
Just how extreme do they say the amendment is? A few days ago, a new flyer showed up in our personal mailbox — it probably showed up in yours, too. The big-print “5 Myths” introduction didn’t mention the Reproductive Liberty Amendment. It called it the “Late-Term Abortion Amendment.”
You’ll recall that the likelihood of lots of late-term abortions taking place if the amendment is passed is one of the terrible things they say will happen, along with the dismemberment of Vermont’s health-care system and the disappearance of doctors’ and nurses’ right to conscience.
By now you’ve probably read about the protections that actually exist in Vermont: that elective abortions are not performed after 21 weeks and six days, after which a UVM Medical Center (the only place where post-22-weeks abortions can be performed) ethics panel determines whether there is a fetal anomaly or condition incompatible with life or a serious threat to the mothers’ health.
But there’s one thing that right-to-lifers have been ignoring throughout this barrage of disasters they’re predicting if the amendment is passed.
It’s simple: Abortion is not going to go away. Period
If you’re over 70, you’ll remember that friend who made a sudden trip to Mexico, or the one who spent some unexpected time in a hospital for unknown reasons.
The fact is that women who don’t want to have a baby will find a way not to have a baby. Period.
The affluent who have a sympathetic doctor will find a safe way. The others will do what they can, as they can. The Guttmacher Institute tells us that “in 1955, experts had estimated, on the basis of qualitative assumptions, that 200,000 to 1,200,000 illegal abortions were performed each year,” going on to explain that “the number of abortion-related deaths per million live births fell from nearly 40 in 1970 to eight in 1976” — Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
You may be wondering why I keep referring to “right-to-lifers” instead of something more moderate, like “opponents of the amendment.”
I refer to them as right-to-lifers because that is who, by and large, they are.
We’ve watched anti-abortion groups throughout the country try a little of this and a little of that until they finally got an anti-abortion majority in their state legislature and another in the Supreme Court.
You can be sure that those Vermonters who oppose abortion — even if they’ve found a few pro-abortion folks to speak against Article 22 — want to keep reproductive rights out of the state constitution to make it easier to take the next anti-abortion steps.
Please, if you haven’t already done so, vote yes on Article 22.
