Sunday, June 3, 2018 5:25am | Letters to the Editor | Opinion
At a time when anti-choice legislators across the country are passing laws designed to pare down Roe v. Wade or eliminate the right to choose altogether, Federal Way residents deserve to know that their own state senator, Mark Miloscia, supports a return to the days when women who wanted to end their pregnancies had to resort to self-mutilation and back-alley abortions.
When I first moved to the Seattle area (1967), a woman’s body was found floating in Green Lake. She had a back-alley abortion from someone who accidentally injected air into her veins, causing her death. If legislators like Miloscia get their way and abortion becomes illegal, women’s lives will again be at risk.
Senator Miloscia says he’s “pro-life.” In his floor speech opposing this year’s Reproductive Health Act (SB 6219), he claimed that the right to access abortion “hurts” poor women and minorities most. So it’s ironic that he seems to be “pro-life” only until the fetus is born. Infants, children and families are not his priority – as demonstrated by Miloscia’s vote against health care for immigrants, including children; opposing universal health care; opposing affordable housing bills; opposing no-cost birth control; and voting against funding for basic education.
Federal Way deserves a state senator in Olympia who will fight for every person’s right to decide when and with whom to start a family, and who will work to ensure that every child is wanted, and every family has an opportunity to thrive. My vote will go to current Federal Way schools leader Claire Wilson, and I hope those of you reading this letter will follow my lead. Vote for Claire Wilson while voting out Mark Miloscia. Claire Wilson will uphold the lives of women and children and their individual choices.
Laurie Garrett, Des Moines
