Dear Editor:

Vote for Governor Janet Mills if you too feel that girls and women must not be forced into giving birth. Governor Mills not only supports women’s right to control their own bodies and the most personal decisions about it, but has expanded access in Maine to all reproductive health services. Both private and public health insurance providers are now required to cover abortion care, thanks to legislation she signed.

After the radical and reactionary Supreme Court ruling, she signed an Executive Order to further protect reproductive  and privacy rights, for both Mainers and those seeking abortion care here.

Her opponent Paul LePage, on the other hand, will not commit to ruling out removing Maine Care coverage, or signing legislation to limit all abortions to just six weeks, when there is no fetus, only an embryo with no developed heart or heartbeat. Roe had protected pregnant people up to fetal viability, at about 24 weeks.

There are a great many reasons to back our governor, who has done a fine job. Reproductive Rights are just one of them. Please vote and urge everyone you know to vote to protect half the population whose autonomy has been stripped away. Thank you.

Ruth Monsell

Damariscotta