Keep Abortion Safe

As a high school counselor, I know this fact: Young women are capable of making excellent decisions about their reproductive health, especially when they are given the supports, information and resources to do so. Measure 106 would reduce access to reproductive health care options.

To me, whose job it is to assure the health and well-being of our young people, Measure 106 — which would cut access to abortions for low-income Oregonians — doesn’t make sense at all.

World Health Organization (WHO) statistics show the number of women receiving abortions in places where it’s legal and illegal is roughly the same. WHO also shows illegal abortions are unsafe and potentially life threatening.

Consequently, if M106 were to pass, the numbers of young women injured, hospitalized and dying from unsafe abortions would increase. This is untenable anywhere, but especially in Oregon, where we decisively passed into law what has been called the most progressive comprehensive health care bill in this country’s history.   

A young woman facing an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy deserves the best reproductive healthcare information, resources and supports available.

Please join me in seeing to it that young women throughout Oregon retain the full reproductive health care options available to them right now. Vote “no” on Measure 106.

Tibor Besskó

Eugene