Helaina Hinson: Respect women’s rights

The state’s women aren’t fooled by North Carolina legislators. We know their “waiting periods” and “surgical center requirements” aren’t about “protecting” us. They failed at banning abortion, so they’re making it harder to get them.

Nobody just wakes up and thinks, “Oh, I’m pregnant and don’t want to be. I guess I’ll go get an abortion this morning.” We’ve already considered its effect on our lives. We know about the other options. Let us make decisions with our doctors instead of politicians.

Cancer patients aren’t required to take a waiting period to think about it before starting chemo. Parents aren’t required to wait 72 hours before they get their child’s tonsils removed. Those are also “life-changing procedures.”

We know our circumstances better than they do and are quite capable of voicing our preferences to our physicians by ourselves. They need to stop parenting North Carolina women and start respecting our right to make our own life-changing decisions.

This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 4:03 PM with the headline "Helaina Hinson: Respect women’s rights."