Letters: Greater Cincinnati reacts to Roe v. Wade decision
America is a democracy, not a theocracy
As a retired U.S. naval officer, I am commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade. American citizens pride themselves on diversity, freedom of speech and freedom of religion, yet a Catholic faction claims and demands their beliefs trump those of other citizens. One person’s religion is another person’s mythology.
If not your body, it’s not your call. The Supreme Court’s ruling wrongly makes a federal constitutional issue a state one; both courts are tainted by religious opinions.
The decisions made by our 50 states on this issue will confirm which states govern by theocracy or by democracy.
Keith Klesk, Loveland
No one has the right to kill a baby in mother's womb
Thank you, SCOTUS, for having the courage to overturn Roe v. Wade, and return back to the states and the people, the right of abortion. It is not the total end of abortion but is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, one day in the future, abortion will be banned in all 50 states. No one has the right to kill a baby in the mother's womb. Only God can create a life, and only He can end the life.
Our nation was founded on Christian values, and we have drifted off the moral path. God has somehow been abandoned in America, and we must find our way back to Him if we are to have unity, happiness and blessings in the future.
Arlene Doerger, Cleves
Promote adoption as an option for unwanted pregnancies
I supported the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade, but haven’t seen many other choices that pregnant women have when they deal with an unwanted pregnancy. There are about two million single or married couples who would opt to adopt a baby in America today. The full-service agency, American Adoptions, is a national source as well as local adoption agencies in the area. Let’s encourage and share this option.
Susan Long Dineen, Montgomery
Roe decision proves SCOTUS is clearly political
With their recent abortion decision, The U.S. Supreme Court has now made it clear that it is a political institution, trying to make law rather than interpreting the law as written. I am ashamed of our country right now.
Harry Blaine, East Walnut Hills
Without legal abortion, more attention should go to contraception
In June, 2016, I read an article in The Enquirer about the Free Condom Project. Ohioans who are 16 or over can go online and request 30 free condoms be sent to their home for free. Very few people know about this.
I’m a registered nurse whose retirement hobby became giving out free condoms in dollar store parking lots in impoverished neighborhoods. In five years, I gave out about 10,000 condoms (and postcards that tell how to order their own) in parking lots and other venues.
With Friday’s SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, maybe more people will be paying attention to contraception. The free condoms are available for folks who can’t afford types of birth control or don’t have a way to easily get to a drug store or health clinic.
Might be a good time to run the article again, as part of a story about life without safe, legal abortions.
Lela Ruth Cooper, Hyde Park
Publish information about resources to assist pregnant women
After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, The Enquirer should be publishing contact information for every service provider and information on every available benefit that can assist pregnant women, new mothers and families to welcome new children, instead of information stoking the flames of abortion and the culture of death.
Beth Egbers, Pleasant Ridge
Roe decision a setback for women's reproductive rights
The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade is fundamentally an assault on women. It assumes we are unfit to make a reasoned, moral, responsible decision about a pregnancy; the government has to do it for us.
The circumstances surrounding a pregnancy are unique to each woman. To many, it is a planned event. To others, it may be unplanned for numerous reasons. No law will fit the unique situations a woman may find herself in when she becomes pregnant.
Roe has given women sufficient wiggling room to make their own decisions until the time of fetal viability. Now the battle for women's reproductive rights will be fought in the 50 states, so we are back to where we were in the mid-20th century. It is unfortunate that Justice Samuel Alito, in articulating the history of abortion in the country as an argument to overturn Roe, omitted the past 50 years when women's roles in society significantly changed.
Ruth Bamberger, Ludlow, Ky.
Focus on helping women welcome unborn children
Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, may the passion and energy of its opponents now turn to eliminating the pressures on those women who feel unable to welcome their unborn children. These pressures are "upstream" of numerous abortions.
Areas of public policy are many: a living wage, affordable housing, paid parental leave, adequate health care, adequate child care, gender parity, racial justice, immigration reform based on family unity, the list goes on.
Mary-Cabrini Durkin, Walnut Hills
Republicans will ban abortions, but not guns
These are dark days in our country. Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions defy law and logic.
Thanks to the Supreme Court: Women are denied reproductive rights, e.g., control over their bodies; children and adults are now more likely to be slaughtered in schools or public spaces. Add to this, the assault on our free and fair election processes, especially in states dominated by Trump-supporting Republicans.
Just witness the shocking details exposed at the January 6 hearings. And now, we're facing the two most recent, equally shocking, Supreme Court rulings on states' gun laws and abortion bans.
Former president Donald Trump's newly appointed, uniquely, extremely conservative, Supreme Court justices seem blind to the injustice visited on the "already born" children (and adults) being slaughtered as evidenced by the latest ruling on denying states the right to implement gun restrictions.
And then there's Trump himself, and most Republicans, who nearly destroyed our democracy after the 2020 election, and they continue to undermine democracy and trust in the electoral process today! Witness the shocking Jan. 6 hearings, and how close we came to losing our right to free and fair elections.
Republicans and conservative extremists are demonstrably hypocrites: States now cannot pass laws restricting guns, but the states can enact laws that ban abortions.
What's the solution? Vote Republicans out of office. Vote for Democrats, who will restore sanity and safety, and women's rights, and enact laws to help protect us from this epidemic of violence by emotionally disturbed 18-year-old men with hand guns or military assault rifles.
Elizabeth Wallen, Springfield, Ky.
No woman should be forced to give birth against her will
The Republican war on women and their rights scored a temporary victory on Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court stripped half the country's population of its right to control reproduction. The politically activist, deliberately packed, historically misinformed court imposed extremist Catholic religious ideology on all Americans, without respect for our diverse personal faiths, beliefs and moral codes.
State governments will now force citizens to submit to a radical doctrine conjured up centuries ago by Catholic priests and, only recently, adopted by Christian evangelicals whipped up by Republican Party strategists. Most Americans don’t believe a fertilized egg is a person. We don’t believe embryos are babies. By the same measure, we don’t believe menstruating or miscarrying women are murdering kids. We don’t believe fetuses are babies, either, until many weeks of development have occurred.
The court’s new Catholic-inspired legal dogma will motivate Americans who believe in personal liberty and religious freedom to work tirelessly to guarantee no woman in the U.S. is ever forced to give birth against her will. We’ll do that by assuring women everywhere have access, confidentially, to medication abortion by mail and by assuring that women who prefer or require surgical abortions can travel affordably to clinics providing that service. We who love freedom will make certain the suppression of human rights by a disgraceful Catholic court does not prevail.
Robert Pickford, College Hill
Roe v. Wade has always been bad law
Since the word "abortion" doesn't appear in the U.S. Constitution, liberals should (but won't) concede that Roe v. Wade has always been bad law. Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg said so. Now that it's been overturned, rather than riot, shouldn't pro-choice advocates concentrate their efforts on electing state lawmakers who agree with their position, since it's state legislatures that will now set abortion guidelines? That's certainly the path that responsible citizens in a democracy should take.
Jeffrey Mueller, Mt. Washington
Remember Roe decision next time you vote
I hope women understand what the U.S. Supreme Court decided by overturning Roe v. Wade. They decided that women are incapable of making moral decisions for themselves and their families! May we and the men who care for us remember this day when we vote in future national and state elections.
Kathleen Hebbeler, Northside
Overturning Roe could come back to bite GOP in midterms
As a practicing Catholic, I am very pleased that Roe v. Wade has been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. While I’m sympathetic to the millions of Americans who opposed that decision, I see it as the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
From a religious viewpoint, I strongly support anti-abortion thinking. But from a political viewpoint, I believe that – opposing the overwhelming number of voters who are pro-choice – will do statistical harm to the Republican Party in November.
Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, you will probably agree that very little has been accomplished in the first two years of the Biden administration. Some of this has been the result of GOP opposition to proposed legislation and some of it comes from external forces like the Ukraine war, inflation, gun lobby influence, etc. My point is that enough negative vibes will be created by this decision and gun law issues that voters will make a swing away from those candidates who support overturning Roe and a lack of substantive gun law restrictions.
These are two very personal issues that the vast majority of us have strong opinions about and those feelings will translate into voting decisions. It doesn’t require a genius mentality to remember the GOP lost the 2020 presidential election by over 8 million votes; and these new developments certainly will not win them any popularity or political elections.
Good, bad or indifferent, we will see significant changes in the body politic before year’s end. Stay tuned. A new day is coming.
Mike Hauer, Villa Hills, Ky.
Elected representatives, not unelected autocrats, should decide abortion issue
Isn't it interesting that the same group that screams the loudest about threats to "our democracy" is also the group that demands that the abortion issue be decided by nine unelected autocrats instead of by the democratically elected representatives of the people?
Paul Thiel, Crescent Springs, Ky.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Letters: Greater Cincinnati residents react to Roe v. Wade decision
