Readers React: Supporters of abortion rights aren’t promoting eugenics

To the editor: Amnesty International is not calling for Zika-related abortions, as Charles C. Camosy implies. What Amnesty and the other organizations mentioned are doing is pointing out how futile it is to advise women not to get pregnant in countries where family planning services are inadequate or nonexistent. (“Is the call for Zika virus abortions the new eugenics?” Opinion, Feb. 19)

Amnesty has also called out governments (previous to this Zika breakout) for laws that criminalize most abortions or outright ban the procedure.

The situation is so bad in El Salvador that women who miscarry can be sent to jail. In Paraguay, an 11-year-old girl who had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather was forced to give birth.

Restrictive abortion laws may be intended to protect “prenatal children from violence,” but they amount to institutionalized violence against women. Human rights groups are not trying to “impose” Western values but stand with women in these countries who are fighting for their basic human rights.

Norma Edwards, Lakewood

..

To the editor: To equate the idea that “access to abortion rights is a matter of human rights” to neocolonialism or the return of eugenics is ludicrous.

In parts of the United States, sterilization was forced upon the “unfit.” Abortion is a choice made by an individual. The legality of that choice was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade.

Is Camosy proposing that we impose his moral principles and practice only parts of the Constitution? Does Camosy believe that the United States, United Nations, Amnesty International and Planned Parenthood speaking up for human rights is the same as trying to “impose foreign moral and legal principles onto those who think differently”?

I would suggest the person “arrogantly insisting that [people] change their laws to suit someone’s else’s ideology” is Camosy.

Joanne M. Mell, San Diego

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook