When I was growing up, we were told that we were lucky to have been born with the freedom to be whoever we chose and do what we wanted for a career and that, with hard work and perseverance, we could become whatever we wanted to be.
Freedom implied that we owned ourselves. But, many decades have passed and we now learn that we do not own ourselves or our freedoms – if we are women. Now, depending on what state a woman lives in, a state can now own you, your body, your freedom to be.
What is happening now in this country is against all manner of sound, reasonable respect for women’s history to have and enjoy their legal rights to their own bodies and legitimate choices. Where once we had to overcome the restrictions of religion, of cultural and social impediments because we had been born the “lesser” sex, all the struggles to be equal humans are being washed away by forced dogmas with no legitimacy.
The only way to regain our free citizen legitimacy in every state in this country is to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The 28th Amendment to the Constitution will, at long last, put an end to the attempts to abolish our rights as free individuals who own who we are.
Loretta M. Turner
Biddeford
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