Letters Respond To New York Times Editorial On State Ballot Initiatives

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 17 Oct 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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The New York Times published three letters to the editor in response to a Monday editorial about ballot initiatives in South Dakota, Colorado and California regarding abortion and reproductive rights. The editorial said that the ballot initiatives, if approved, could "violate women's privacy and threaten their health" and "become a weapon in the right-wing campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade" (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 10/14). Summaries of the letters to the editor appear below.

~ Suzanne Poppema: The editorial "correctly points out the true intent of abortion-related ballot initiatives: to harass women seeking to make the best decision they can about whether or not to have a baby," Poppema, board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, writes. Four decades ago "physicians around the country fought to make abortion safe and legal," she writes, adding, "Now we are facing three initiatives that could once again put women at risk." Poppema concludes that she "hope[s] that voters in these states will also be able to see clearly through such despicable threats and vote to protect patients' health and autonomy" (Poppema, New York Times, 10/14).

~ Lynn Paltrow: The Times is "right to call on voters to reject" the three proposals, but it is "wrong to focus exclusively on the impact on 'abortion rights,'" Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, writes. She continues, "Measures that outlaw abortion and recognize fetal rights are routinely used to hurt all pregnant women, including those going to term," adding that such measures "are used to control, and sometimes punish" women who do not want unnecessary caesarean sections, want to attempt a vaginal birth after c-section, cannot overcome drug or alcohol addiction, or have had unintentional still births. "Opposition to the ballot measures is not necessarily support for abortion," she writes, adding, "[R]ather, it is support for the human rights of women who sometimes have abortions but who almost always become mothers" (Paltrow, New York Times, 10/14).

~ Peter Papadopoulos: The headline of the Times editorial -- "Abortion Rights on the Ballot, Again" -- is "an arrogant attempt at demeaning the continuing passion people have for an issue that should be on state ballots to be voted on instead of being rammed down their throats by intellectual elites wearing robes," according to Papadopoulos, a Queens, New York, resident (Papadopoulos, New York Times, 10/13).

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