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Vote ‘yes’ on Proposal 3

The letters thus far that have appeared in the Daily News against Proposal 3 have, in their zeal to defend the rights of fetuses, forgotten entirely about the fact that the people who gestate those fetuses also exist and have rights. In a contest between the two, why should pregnant people always come in second?

Forced pregnancy is a violent act. To demand that any human’s body is at the disposal of another is very close to how to define both rape and slavery.

Pregnancy is possibly the most demanding, life-altering experience that the human body can endure. And that’s before one takes into account the situation after a birth.

America has the highest maternal death rate of any wealthy nation, more than triple that of any other developed nation. The statistics are even worse for women of color. Death is only the most extreme potential outcome.

Far more people who give birth suffer negative health effects, some of which can last a lifetime. Mental health outcomes are probably the most elusive to document, since our culture refuses to allow women the space to admit that parenting and especially motherhood can be anything other than joyful, but there is growing recognition of the stress, depression and other mental health challenges that can begin with pregnancy and last well into parenthood.

Now imagine having to face any of those things for a pregnancy you didn’t want in the first place.

Imagine how much more your health and mental state would suffer if you were being told that you had no choice, you had to suffer through this, no matter how terrible it was.

There are also the life-altering outcomes of parenthood. The financial demands, and the time required, and because women are still societally expected to be the caretaker of children, the career limiting or even ending which can happen when one has a baby. It’s a vicious circle. Having to consider all of this, especially in a case of unintended pregnancy, would feed right back into that trauma loop.

It’s one thing for a person to choose to take these risks, because they are excited to expand their family. It’s quite another for the state to force these risks upon anyone. We wouldn’t allow that kind of regulation of any other human body. And we don’t. Rape is illegal. Slavery was long since outlawed.

Somehow forced pregnancy remains on the table, and as we have seen in many other states, there is the risk of it be written into states’ laws, unless another law overrules that. This is what Proposal 3 would do — override the ability of anyone to push through a law that would force pregnancy on an unwilling person.

Incidentally, it would also protect your right to use contraception to prevent pregnancy in the first place. Because the anti-choice lobby continues to insist that certain kinds of contraception are abortifacient (they’re not; that’s actual scientific fact), contraception becomes a battleground as well, without the assurance of Proposal 3. The ability to receive care for a miscarriage is also protected by Prop 3, whereas it would be at risk without it.

Please vote a resounding “YES” on Proposal 3 at the upcoming election. Don’t be part of allowing violent, forced-pregnancy laws to have a place in Michigan. Protect our people’s right to make their own, person, private decisions by voting in favor of Prop 3.

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