Sen. Susan Collins must realize that meeting with Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a good first step, but she should not be assured by his statement that Roe v. Wade is “settled law.”

I used to take comfort in that, too. Then I discovered there are a thousand cuts, as there are in chipping away at the Affordable Care Act, that can undermine the law. Here is a quote from Kavanaugh’s own former law clerk, writing in National Review: “On the vital issues of protecting religious liberty and enforcing restrictions on abortion, no court-of-appeals judge in the nation has a stronger, more consistent record than Judge Brett Kavanaugh.”

I urge Sen. Collins to please stand strong for women, not just in Maine but also nationally. Listen to women’s stories of abortions and understand how stupid it is to make this a political issue rather than a medical one. Why must we “honor” a “woman’s choice” on whether to induce labor (as an ob-gyn professor recently told The New York Times) but not her right to choose whether to give birth at all?

We need Sen. Collins to be a hero and a champion for women by voting against a judge who is no centrist, who will take the court in an ever-more-political direction so we as a nation no longer trust our very laws.

Rana O’Connor

Portland