Readers React: Some reproductive health suggestions for men who want to make abortion their business

To the editor: Preventing women from obtaining healthcare is wrong. Women have become desperate to get help in those states that are forcing abortion providers to close. We need help with contraceptives, information on sexually transmitted diseases, pap tests, breast exams and, yes, abortions. (“Crossing the ‘abortion desert’: Women increasingly travel out of their states for the procedure,” June 2)

We’re not asking much, just the basic right to take care of our bodies. Too many women are now being denied that right.

If women are forced to put their healthcare in the hands of strangers, then I propose that men must do the same. After all, they’re half the cause of our reproductive problems.

Here is my solution: Any man who doesn’t pay child support or has more than two children is required to get a vasectomy, rapists must be castrated, and no man is allowed to introduce laws or vote on laws related to women’s reproductive organs.

Women’s healthcare is none of their business. It is our business.

Lynell Marshall, La Palma

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To the editor: A more positive title for your front-page article could have been, “Fewer unborn babies aborted due to stricter laws.” But that wouldn’t have supported the sad stories of women inconvenienced by having to travel too far for an abortion.

Poor Pearl, for example. Only 22, unmarried and living with her parents, she complains about having to take a four-hour drive to end her pregnancy. And her two pregnant friends are also worried about their own abortions due to new laws.

Then there’s Brittany, also 22 and a heroin addict, who gave a baby up for adoption last year and didn’t want to do that again, preferring instead to kill her 17-week fetus. And what she’s mostly worried about is that her dad, who took her for the procedure, might have to miss another day’s work. Are we supposed to shed a tear?

Women who don’t want children should take the time to use good birth control instead of lamenting the fact that getting an abortion isn’t convenient anymore. And yes, birth control can fail, but if used properly and regularly, it rarely does.

Jeanette A. Fratto, Laguna Niguel

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