New Supreme Court justice must protect Roe v. Wade

I am sick over the realization that, with the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, our president is promising to do everything in his power to nominate a replacement who will bring about the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Donald Trump has made it clear that this is his No. 1 priority.

I am one of a rapidly dwindling population of Americans who lived through what it was like pre Roe v. Wade. I am speaking not as either a pro-life or pro-choice advocate. Prior to my retirement, I worked at a major teaching hospital in Boston, and I witnessed daily the stream of teenage and young women who could not obtain legal abortions make their way into our emergency room after resorting to back-alley abortions. They arrived sick, with high temperatures and infected because their abortionists used dirty, non-sterile equipment.

Some of them were so sick that the treatment required to save their lives resulted in their being forever incapable of bearing children. And, sadly, a number of them died because of the “care” they received from these butchers.

Today, for some reason that escapes me, the pro-life supporters believe that making abortions illegal, even in cases involving rape and incest, will magically make this all go away. But this is simply not true. We, as a nation, will only go back to an era that most of us want to forget. And the horrors experienced by that generation will simply be reborn, not just to these women, but to everyone in their lives. It will spawn a new industry of illegal abortionists, spikes in mutilations caused by these “medical practitioners”.

So once again our president seeks to resolve another of this county’s perceived problems by simply legislating against practices he doesn’t agree with.