Vote with empathy

No doubt each person has several issues influencing their voting decision for the presidential candidates. I am asking you to consider another one. Upon taking office in 2017, President Trump immediately canceled massive foreign aid funding that helped families at many clinics around the world. These serve great numbers of the poorest women, and make available pre-natal care, contraceptives, and abortion when needed. They help in the family planning that every woman should have access to in this world. We want families to thrive and stay together, and this is the first step to controlling the stress and financial picture through the years. Because of his sad decision, millions of women have been set back in their ability to cope and feed their families.

The respected Alan Guttmacher Institute says “a modest decline of even 10% in access to care could have severe long-term impacts, including potentially more unsafe abortions; if 10% of safe abortions become unsafe we would see 3 million unsafe abortions and 1000 maternal deaths”. The Republicans here in the U.S. who are eager to close clinics that do any abortions are going to cause a result they won’t even like –more girls and women dying from illegal abortions. The fewest abortions are when there is plenty of contraception, education, and support of various kinds, not when it is made illegal. Joe Biden as President will work to correct this situation.

Roz Luther

Spokane