To The Editor: It is May 5 as I write. Today the NH House passed SB484, the Collaborative Practice for Emergency Contraception Act (Morning After Pill), with a 198 – 146 vote. The clerk with whom I talked said that in the next 24 hours any requests to “reconsider” could still attempt to derail this huge effort. The governor could still use his veto. Let’s hope the million-plus women who marched for choice on April 25th in D.C. have been heard far north in New Hampshire. Kudos, too, to the PSU and area women who made the time commitment to travel and be counted.The Clock article (4/30 by Candace Casey) quotes Sen. Peterson as saying, “It is time for us to trust the young women of the state.” When I ran in the primary for U.S. Senate in 1992, I had the opportunity to speak up for choice before a Concord AARP chapter. I’ll never forget one older woman’s testimony then, brought to mind now by Sen. Peterson. A gray-haired woman told of becoming pregnant in old age. She may or may not have been able to carry a healthy or unhealthy baby full term to delivery. She thanked all who had made it possible that she could have a legal abortion with the safety it allowed. She said, “I don’t want people to think it’s only the young who may require abortions.”For a serious look, through fiction, at the days of illegal abortion, anyone should read John Barth’s The End of the Road.
– Lynn Rudmin Chong Sanbornton, NH