To the editor:

Dear fellow residents. After the recent leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Barrington State Representative, Liana Cassar sponsored bill H-7442, in the RI State Legislature, which seeks to provide abortion coverage at taxpayer expense in the state Medicaid program and state employee health insurance plans.  

Similarly, Senate bill S-2549 is being sponsored by Senator Bridget Valverde of East Greenwich. You should know that both of the Barrington State Representatives and our State Senator endorse these bills. 

At the Federal level, the bipartisan Hyde Amendment, which is at risk of repeal, has protected American tax dollars from funding abortion for the last 46 years. Most American citizens oppose taxpayer funding of abortion and heinous second and third-trimester abortion procedures. For many, this is a matter of moral or religious conviction and to force them to fund or participate in abortion would be a serious violation of conscience rights.  

We expect our tax dollars to serve the common good of our community by repairing roads, not paying for other people’s abortions. Perhaps, the underserved pregnant women in our state would benefit from equal access to prenatal care, material assistance, adoption services and affordable child care instead of incentivizing the destruction of their children. A 2002 Guttmacher Institute study found that the abortion rate among Medicaid-eligible women were four times higher than other women when their home state pays for abortion. 

Science confirms that multiple human patients are present during an abortion procedure, each possessing unique DNA, fingerprints, heartbeat, circulatory system, brain and organs, but only one survives the procedure. 

The aim of every abortion procedure is the destruction of one of the patients, a vulnerable human being. Juxtapose, if you will, the serenity and safety of the developing child in the womb and the violence committed against them by abortion. Authentic healthcare aims to first “do no harm” and to restore health not destroy life. Bodily integrity or inviolability is a human right which extends to the pre-born child who has no choice or voice except for the born persons who are responsible for their well-being and the law to protect them. 

Profiteers of abortion deceptively refer to it as “reproductive freedom”, “reproductive health care” or “choice” in order to justify the collective cognitive dissonance of abortion’s eugenic reality. Semantic engineering does not change the reality that it is the destruction of human life.  

The RI bills are based on the false premise that abortion is health care and says that those eligible are “entitled to services for any termination of pregnancy”. 

Rhode Island taxpayers should not be forced to cooperate with this fundamental human rights injustice and violation of conscience.  

Join me in letting your representative and senator know that you oppose taxpayer funded abortion in RI and bills H-7442 and S-2549. 

Rep-cassar@rilegislature.gov  (D- 66), Rep-knight@rilegislature.gov (D-67), Sen-coyne@rilegislature.gov (D-32)

Jean Ernster

Barrington