Abortion care is essential health care
It’s likely that neither my son nor I would be alive today had I not had access to abortion services. (My son’s birth required a reduction in the number of fetuses I was carrying early in my second semester of pregnancy.) I would not have graduated college had I been forced to carry a pregnancy at 18 years old, and carrying that pregnancy to term would not have been conducive to my need to heal from sexual assualt.
Abortion care is essential health care. Bans and restrictions on access to this healthcare will substantially increase the economic burdens and health risks that women face and will disproportionately impact women of color, as well as women with disabilities. Women from these communities already face more barriers to essential health care, with Black and Indigigenous women having disproportionate rates of maternal mortality and miscarriage.
The U.S. ranks highest for maternal mortality among the 11 highest income countries.
Our communities need an expansion in access to all forms of health care. Barriers to healthcare are already a driving cause related to generational inequality in education, economic opportunities, not to meantime life expectancy. Abortion access is an economic justice, climate justice as well as a health equity issue. Congress and State Legislatures must protect our right to access the full spectrum of reproductive health care.
Don’t miss the opportunity to join in the reproductive health care marches and rallies that will be on-going in the coming weeks and months.
Jodeen Olguín-Tayler/Colorado
Seasonus Politicus
As we enter the Seasonus Politicus, I wish to gently remind the media that voters don’t need to know what those standing for filing office had for lunch, nor when they take restroom breaks. Nor do the voters need to know these peoples’ favorite shampoos, sweets, or small clothes preferences.
What voters do need to know is what these people intend to do if they gain the offices they seek. Of course, plans rarely survive engagement with reality, but at least voters will know the starting points of candidates. Journalists, ask the hard questions of how and why or why not. Make those asking for these posts put in serious sweat equity. Everyone will be better for it.
Lora Hansen-Beard/Boulder
Out-of-control flight schools need to be regulated
Recently, 19 Attorney Generals responded to the EPA’s Draft Strategy to Reduce Lead Exposures and Disparities in U.S. Communities. It included a scathing report on the continued use of leaded aviation gasoline by general aviation airports. They commented:
“Leaded aviation gas is the only remaining lead-containing transportation fuel and it is the single largest contributor of airborne lead emissions in the United States. The combustion of avgas by piston-engine planes is responsible for 70% of airborne lead emissions nationwide.112 The most recent emissions data from EPA show that these planes released more than 930,000 pounds of lead into the atmosphere in 2017, and emissions from the general aviation sector are expected to increase in the coming years.113 The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicts sector emissions will reach 1.5 million pounds per year by 2025—a 66% increase in emissions from 2017.”
According to the most recent (2017) National Emissions Inventory (NEI) data, Boulder Municipal Airport’s share of this is 285 pounds per year.
There is no safe limit of lead in the blood.
Other airports have banned this fuel in the interest of the health of the children who live near those airports.
Other cities are working on putting control of their airports back to where it belongs—with the people who own the airport.
The lead emissions must stop. The out of control flight schools need to be regulated.
Gary Keller/San Diego
