Voting for Reproductive Freedom

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Voters in three states did the right thing last week by defeating dangerous anti-abortion measures on their ballots.

In Colorado, an overwhelming vote of 73 percent to 27 percent rejected a wild initiative that would have amended the state’s Constitution to bestow on fertilized eggs, prior to implantation in the womb, the same legal rights and protections that apply to people once they are born. In addition to ending abortion rights, this doozy threatened to ban widely used forms of contraception, curtail medical research involving embryos, shutter fertility clinics, and criminalize necessary medical care.

In South Dakota, 55 percent of voters said no to a sweeping abortion ban that its backers had hoped to use as vehicle for challenging Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized a woman’s right to make her own childbearing decisions. The defeated measure was a near-twin of the abortion ban handily rejected by voters just two years ago.

In California, meanwhile, voters turned back an attempt by abortion-rights opponents to mandate parental notification, the issue’s third ballot defeat in the state in four years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09sun3.html?th&emc=th