To the Editor:
As a 91-year-old woman, I am outraged at the infamous act of discrimination toward young women of childbearing age, condemned by the most insensitive, male-dominated Supreme Court majority’s recent draft of a decision to further erode the rights of 52 percent of the population.
This upcoming reversal is to condemn women to loss of opportunity in education, careers, income, and freedom to determine their own destiny. The plight of these unfortunate women, unless bolstered by a husband’s largesse, could well be a retirement future of abject poverty in their elder years.
Condemned to bear and raise unwanted offspring, unlike Justice Amy Coney Barrett, privileged by her wealth to employ others to perform childcare services, less financially endowed young women will be deprived of opportunity to enjoy a much-coveted and well-deserved pension to sustain them, gleaned only by uninterrupted careers in the workplace. This Supreme Court appears willing to condemn these same women to the dustbin in their later years after forcing them to produce unwanted offspring.
Or even if, post-childbearing years, these same mothers seek employment, their limited savings or reduced pensions, plus traditionally longer lifespan than that of men, will cause greater dependence on government services to sustain them. This future scenario is an abomination in America. a nation already complaining about the influx of desperate families and individuals fleeing abusive violence and war in their own countries, and arriving at our borders dependent on our social services already overburdened, and understaffed. How shortsighted are these self-righteous, intolerant, and uncaring Supreme Court justices? It is such a simple matter to concern oneself for the well-being of the yet unborn, for whom one has no responsibility, rather than consider the forced state of condemned, long-term motherhood with constant care of newborns, siblings perhaps, and unlimited future births, for decades because of such draconian new regulations!
What kind of life will these unwanted children experience? Since unlike Justice Barrett’s rosy prediction of adoption as a desirable option, we are learning from the dire situation unfolding in the Ukraine that American couples desirous of a child prefer to seek and pay foreign, i.e. Ukrainian women, as surrogate mothers to produce infants of their own genetic makeup. Definitely not interested in an adoptee of unknown parentage! Finally, in sharp contrast, we view the preservation of male rights, versus constrictions placed on young females, of their unfettered privilege to obtain vasectomies if so inclined.
In conclusion, the outrageous hypocrisy and enforcement of their own religious values by the majority of Supreme Court justices in this newest discriminatory, long-term, repressive control inflicted upon young potential childbearing American women must not go unchallenged.
Doreen Kinsman
Vineyard Haven
