Fight the Ban - 10 Reasons to Safeguard Abortion - Nebraska oppose LB 781, 933, 1086

 Greetings, Senator X,

 

This is X from X

I’ve emailed you previously and you would send responses, which was always appreciated, but I haven’t received responses in a while. I’ve written a few times on the anti-abortion bills 781, 933, and 1086, and used the ACLU site for contact, and hope these message are being delivered to your inbox, and not the junk folder :) 

I did contact your office and briefly mentioned that and alerted your aide that I would send another email. 

Since discussion of one of these bills will be happening soon, I wanted to reiterate that I expect you to vote NO to these and any bill that jeopardizes women’s access to safe, legal abortions. 

I’ve collected 10 reasons you must oppose LBs 781, 933, and 1086: (Hopefully this makes it a little easier to peruse) 

1. Those who insist abortions be made illegal are trying to put their religious beliefs into law that affects other people, and violates THEIR religious beliefs. We have separation of church and state for a reason.

2. No one can be forced to have an abortion against their will, and no should be forced to carry a pregnancy against their will. Banning abortions forces women to carry pregnancies against their will.

3. Pregnancy comes with many risks, the most severe being risk of death. If abortion is made illegal and pregnancies are required to be carried to term, that means women are not able to fully consent to the risks but are being sacrificed for an ideal by the state. 

4. A person cannot be required to donate organ, tissue, or blood without consent, even if it saves another person’s life. This is still true after their death. Parallel to this is the obvious concept that a woman is not required to carry a pregnancy to term, even though the life of the fetus is in question. 

5. Women are human beings and we have human rights and reproductive rights that mean we can choose if, how, and when to have children. Banning abortion is a violation of these rights.

6. Abortion is a medical procedure and may be brought into play for a number of reasons, even by women who had initially chosen to carry the pregnancy to term. Outlawing medical procedures because certain people don’t like them…. Is nonsensical. 

7. Outlawing abortion does not end abortion, but ends safe abortions. Women’s lives are put at risk when safe procedures are wrongfully taken away.

8. Rapists in Nebraska have parental rights. This is unethical for one, but imagine a woman is raped and pregnancy is now required. You are possibly forcing women to co-parent or get in a custody battle with their rapists, who de facto, are not safe for children to be around. Why are women so despised that they have to suffer multiple indignities?

9. According to the ACLU, Nebraska ranks 50th in state funding for family planning services that reduce unintended pregnancies. This makes sense as Nebraskans are afraid to teach comprehensive sex education in schools. Parents have raised enough stink that even public schools teach abstinence only and refrain from teaching about contraception. Abstinence only is a farce. It endangers youth and withholds information they need. Abstinence only has been proven to lead to unsafe sex and unwanted pregnancies. So not only are teens NOT learning about how to prevent unwanted pregnancies, banning abortion means they have no choice and are being punished for engaging in sex. Let’s catch up with the rest of the world and stop denying our children actual information they need to operate in the real world. 

10. We are wasting taxpayer time and money with each anti-choice anti-abortion law. Let’s do like Colorado and safeguard the right to abortion so women don’t have to constantly fight for our basic human rights.

Thank you for taking the time to read my message. You can guess this is a very important issue to me, and I do trust you will vote NO with these items in mind. 

Thank you, 

X

Additional Contact: oppose LBs 781, 933, 1086, Nebraska anti-abortion laws

 Greetings, Senator X, 

 

I am again writing in opposition to LBs 781, 933, and 1086, which are: the “Heartbeat Act” introduced by Senator Slama, the “Human Life Protection Act” introduced by Senator Albrecht, and the Chemical Abortion Safety Protocol Act, introduced by Senator Geist.

 

I have written on this before but this issue is of utmost importance to me. Please respond to confirm that you have received my correspondence. If I don't hear from you, I’ll want to call the office to ensure that my concerns are being heard. As you can see from the length of my message, an email can better address my thoughts than a phone call. :) 

 

First of all, no one is forcing women to have abortions (that’s illegal), so these bills are needless. However, these bills take away the right to abortion thereby forcing women to give birth, which is dangerous and unethical, and should also be illegal.

 

With all of this anti-choice/anti-abortion legislation I do not feel that women are safe in the state of Nebraska and I do not feel there is an appropriate separation of church and state. 

 

I understand there are people who look at abortion and pregnancy a certain way, but I do not agree that women are obligated to carry a pregnancy to term. No one should be forced into pregnancy to satiate the beliefs of strangers. There are people of all religious beliefs who DO believe a woman maintains the right to make a decision, so these anti-abortion laws are being created to appease a few over-reaching uninvolved people, and that needs to stop. It’s extremely unethical to ban abortion for others, as it is a reproductive right related to bodily autonomy. 

 

I’ve reminded you in my previous correspondence that current legislation around organ donation reflects that a person has bodily autonomy. A person cannot be required to give blood, tissue, or organs to anyone else, even if it saves that person's life. The same should be held as true for pregnancy. 

 

I'm disturbed at the idea that so many people want women to be forced to carry pregnancies to term period, much less in cases of rape, incest, or when it endangers a hopeful mother later in the pregnancy. 

 

My mother mentioned to me just yesterday that two of our neighbors died giving birth and had to be revived, and were then told they should not have further pregnancies. Pregnancy has many risks and is not something to take lightly. Forcing women to continue pregnancies takes away the consent aspect needed in order for a woman to have freely chosen pregnancy. DEATH is a risk of pregnancy. If you force women to continue pregnancies against their will, the state has taken away a woman’s ability to freely consent to that risk. That is NOT freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is some dystopian government level stuff and needs to be avoided by protecting abortion as the health care it is.

 

You cannot force someone to have an abortion, so a pregnancy, with higher risks and more significant outcomes (a human life), cannot be forced upon a woman, as these anti-abortion laws do. 

 

Women who choose abortions are aware of the significance of either choice. Women have been aware of the seriousness of pregnancy and abortion since a young age and neither choice is made lightly. Women choose abortion for a plethora of reasons, including women who are already mothers, or women who wanted that child but must terminate for the safety of themselves of their child. Some women who are cancer patients must terminate a pregnancy so that they may undergo chemotherapy and radiation that would otherwise injure the fetus. Women need to be able to make these choices themselves, not have options stolen from them by uninvolved parties. 

 

“Your right to swing your fist, ends where my face begins.” A person can choose to not have an abortion for themselves, but they can’t make that decision for someone else. This is common sense and needs to be applied in Nebraska by protecting the right to abortion and opposing LBs 781, 933, and 1086 immediately. 

 

The fact that Nebraska is a state in which rapists have parental rights is disturbing. In the Nebraska that some of these zealots want, a woman could be forced to birth a child from rape and co-parent with her rapist. That is NOT a world I want, nor a world that values women, or their ability to live a dignified life. 

 

Women's reproductive rights MUST be protected from these overreaching attacks on our liberty and bodily autonomy. You must oppose this legislation, or you are complicit in the suffering of women in Nebraska. 

 

Abortion should remain legal and accessible for all who seek it. 

 

If people want to claim pro-life, they need to separate themselves from thinking of it only in terms of birth. 

 

Universal Health Care, Universal Child Care, an Actual Living Wage, comprehensive sex ed in school (abstinence only is a sham in which youth are ill prepared for reality), working to abolish war, and more.... THOSE are all more pro-life than forcing women to give birth by taking away the right to abortion. 

 

Thank you for your time. I sincerely hope I can count on you to oppose LBs 781, 933, 1086 to ensure that women are safe in Nebraska. 

 

Thank you 

 

X