PUBLIC VIEWPOINT: State Senate Decision Demonstrates Hatred

I have a few things to say about the outlandish, misogynistic, mean-spirited, scientifically inaccurate, cruel antiabortion bill passed by the Arkansas Senate.

If we weren’t already one of the most backward states in the nation, we are now.

Any efforts to bring jobs and a positive, progressive image and the 21st century to this state for the betterment of all Arkansans are gone. It was killed by an irrational obsession with entities who are not yet - and may never be - born over the safety, autonomy, health and lives of those who are already here. It shows that many in leadership (questionable word there) think all pregnancies are healthy, normal, developmentally successful, risk-free and end happily and successfully. Our appalling, almost criminal, scientific ignorance is now fodder for responsible national news sources and late-night comics.

There are so many things wrong with this decision. Let’s start with these: legislators’ practicing medicine without a license;

total disregard for both women’s and fetal health, including developmental anomalies; disregard for family decision-making, privacy and the free exercise of conscience; religious arrogance; an inhuman lack of compassion; a gross insult to the medical profession;

the willful disregard for proven scientific evidence;

a pure hatred of women;

and an arrogant disrespect for the constitutional prohibition against the establishment of a state religion.

The Spanish Inquisition was a faith-based initiative, too.

LINDA FARRELL

Bella Vista