I’m writing in support of L.D. 1619, An Act to Improve Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Laws. It was inspired by a Maine woman who discovered severe fetal anomalies late in a pregnancy, and she needed an abortion. Because Maine’s law denied her this needed medical care, she was forced to travel to Colorado, spending a small fortune to obtain this procedure.

Not every Mainer can afford out-of-state travel if her pregnancy becomes life-threatening. But we can correct this inhumane treatment by supporting this proposal, which would put the decision to have an abortion later in a pregnancy in the hands of patients and their providers and remove criminal penalties.

I’m beyond child-bearing age, but when I was a young mother with two preschool children, I became unexpectedly pregnant. My husband was employed but we badly needed my salary to stay afloat. I made the difficult decision to have an abortion. I was living in a rural community in upstate New York, where the nurses at the hospital where I had my abortion shamed me every step of the way.

I long for the day when women who make the same difficult decision I did have the freedom to do so without being treated as second-class citizens. Let’s show the rest of the country that we are a caring state that doesn’t make criminals out of abortion providers or deny pregnant people abortion care. Maine has led the way in the past. Let’s do it again.

Pat Taub
Portland