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Thank you for providing coverage of the Saturday demonstration for women’s rights. In our town of 1400, more than 200 local women and men peacefully gathered to mourn the leaked SCOTUS decision that would erase a woman’s right to control her body. The TDB reported more than 100 people attended; we counted 217 demonstrators lining the street.

 

The right to control our own bodies is absolutely fundamental. Organs cannot be harvested from a body without permission prior to death, yet starting this summer, the state may be able to force women to carry any pregnancy to term. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, women will have fewer federal rights than a corpse.

 

We are not seeking autonomy over men’s bodies. We are not asking that all men be required by law to receive vasectomies, reversible for a man only when a woman decides to carry and birth a baby. We simply demand autonomy over our own bodies.

 

Abortion is never a decision made lightly. It is, however, a decision the state has no right to make. It is the right of just one person: the woman who is pregnant. You do not have to be pro-abortion to be pro-choice. You only have to believe we all have the right to bodily autonomy.

 

Thank you again to the TDB for covering our peaceful gathering. We invite others in the community that were unable to join us on Saturday to help us secure women’s (and by extension, all people’s) rights in the months and years to come.

 

Elise Fillpot

Landrum, SC