Sisters, guard your right to decide

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

I can’t believe that American women and girls have just lost the right to autonomy over their own bodies.

My heart goes out to all the females in America right now who have been raped, the mothers who are already struggling, the teenagers and the victims of incest who will now have to bring to term a baby they do not want, can’t afford or are too young to care for.

It is stunningly awful!

Margaret Atwood’s story The Handmaids Tale, which used to be dystopian fiction, is fast becoming a plausible future for American women. From my perspective, I have a foreboding that women in New Zealand must vigilantly guard our right to decide what happens to our bodies.

Women and girls, I am speaking directly to you when I say, from now on, make sure you know exactly what the politicians and political parties you prefer actually stand for.

Organisations here in NZ like Family Life International and Right to Life are delighted the American Supreme Court has repealed Roe vs Wade, effectively sending women’s rights back to the 19th century.

Ken Orr of Right to Life NZ wants our abortion law repealed too.

He said as much recently on National Radio.

One of the National Party’s politicians just delivered a coded message of support for the repeal of American women’s right to abortion and bodily autonomy. The right of women everywhere to decide what happens to, with and in our own bodies is ours and ours alone.

Vehemently guard your right to decide, my sisters, because there are morally bankrupt people in our own country who want to control your choices. Don’t let them.

Lara Meyer