The Ledger-Transcript of June 28 was commendable on all fronts. Leading with a front-page headline of “Local Activists Decry Abortion Decision,” underlining that issue with its editorial, “The ideals of a nation” and then selecting five separate letters from readers that limned both those ideals and the recent efforts to betray them created a sense of a nation at a crossroads.
The last page of that same issue pointed to a possible turn in the road: “Dems protest Free State Project.” That article details the efforts of the Free Staters to withdraw New Hampshire from the union, a seemingly unlikely prospect, but then so was overturning Roe. And that happened precisely because the people who believed abortion to be wrong, sinfully wrong, fought for their cause and elected politicians from state houses on up who supported that cause.
Which is exactly what DeniDickler’s letter (“Women must fight for rights”) asked of those favoring a woman’s right to choose. The anti-abortion forces put 50 years into supporting their cause and the politicians who supported that same cause. It may take 50 years to reset the political clock, but if we really care about our children and grandchildren’s lives as Dickler says, then we will have to be as dedicated. The numbers are on the side of pro-choice, but is the will there?
These are the final words on the last page of that remarkable June 28 paper: “Local democrats will also be participating in a day of action protesting the Free State movement on July 9 from 10 a.m. to noon in Keene Central Square.” We have to start somewhere, and what better place to start than in Keene this coming Saturday before they take our state away as well?
David Simpson
Rindge