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To the Editor:
As I canvass our district to earn your vote to serve as our next state representative, I have the privilege to meet, talk with, and learn from thousands of our neighbors. In both Waterford and Montville, I have found significant agreement on most major issues of concern. One such issue with shared consensus is our strong agreement that we must uphold the right of women to make choices over their own bodies. A right to medical privacy and bodily autonomy, once guaranteed nationally under the Supreme Court precedent of Roe v. Wade, must be upheld in our state going forward.
However, in this year’s legislative session, Representative McCarty voted against Connecticut’s Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, which preserves and protects women’s health care choices and rights. This act is the most significant pro-choice legislation passed by the General Assembly since Connecticut codified the right to safe, legal abortion into state law in 1990. The bill that I strongly support and that Rep. McCarty voted against modernizes our state’s abortion law to be in line with current medical standards of care, protects access to safe, legal abortion care, and shields Connecticut abortion providers and patients from ‘bounty hunter’ laws created by other states. We deserve a representative who stands with us in upholding fundamental rights.
For the first time in fifty years, Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land, and daughters and granddaughters have fewer rights guaranteed to them than their mothers and grandmothers did. Given these circumstances, Rep. McCarty’s vote against safe and legally protected abortion services in Connecticut is a reckless and dangerous decision for our representative to make. Furthermore, her approach to this issue misuses her position in public office by placing her own personal convictions ahead of other people’s freedom to make decisions of bodily autonomy for themselves.
Many of our neighbors witnessed, firsthand, the dangers of the world pre-Roe. Thankfully, there are generations who have had the freedom to live their lives protected by the guarantees of the Roe precedent. Rep. McCarty’s vote against a woman’s right to choose does not represent voters in our district who overwhelmingly want to defend reproductive health care services which protect the health and lives of women and girls in our state.
When elected, my obligation will be to guarantee that rights of bodily autonomy and medical privacy are fully protected in our state’s laws and constitution. My obligation will be to ensure you have the freedom to make your own choices.
Nick Gauthier
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Gauthier is a candidate for State Representative, Connecticut House District 38, which includes Waterford and Montville