Dear Editor,
Pregnancy always poses some health risks for women. Even young and otherwise healthy women can develop serious, sometimes life-threatening complications during pregnancy. Women and their families have to make difficult decisions when complications threaten a woman’s health or when a fetus has a tragic congenital defect incompatible with life. The last thing that women, their families, and their doctors need, when facing these difficult circumstances, is government interfering in their decisions.
Doctors know best how to treat women in difficult pregnancies, and they don’t need politicians to stand in their way or second-guess their decisions. Tennessee’s proposed Amendment 1 would allow state legislators to do just that: make decisions best made by doctors and families. In fact, it could allow legislators to dictate even what doctors tell their patients in the exam room. Amendment 1 represents dangerous and unnecessary government intrusion in the doctor-patient relationship, which is based on privacy and trust.
If you value your ability to make private health care decisions in consultation with your doctor, your family and your faith leaders, you should vote no on Amendment 1.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Warren
Bartlett, Tenn.
Editor’s note: The proposed amendment states:
“Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion. The people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother.”
Go online to read the full resolution proposing this amendment to the Tennessee state constitution.
To read online articles on the pros and cons of this amendment, search the Web for “No to Amendment 1 Tennessee” and “Yes to Amendment 1 Tennessee.”
