FETUS: No, it's not state property

When I read that Chuck Winder, Republican of Meridian, introduced anti-abortion legislation in the Idaho Senate with the following statement, “We feel the state does have a right to look after that unborn child,” I cringed and thought of Romania and President Nicolae Ceausescu. 

In 1966 Ceausescu decided Romania needed more people and began his campaign with the following decree: “The fetus is the property of the entire society. Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity.” 

He made a mockery of family planning, forbade sex education and banned all contraception. Women under the age of 45 were rounded up at their workplaces every one to three months and taken to clinics, where they were examined for signs of pregnancy, often in the presence of government agents dubbed “the menstrual police” by Romanians.

Women who failed to conceive paid a “celibacy tax” of up to 10 percent of their monthly salaries and Communist youth groups were sent to quiz them about their sex lives. 

Winder shows no concern for women with this law, even going so far as to try to legislate what could only be called electronic rape. All Idaho women who have any respect for themselves and their daughters should vigorously protest this ugly law. Meanwhile all of the Republican presidential candidates continuously campaign against government interference in the lives of Americans.  

JANET CALLEN

Coeur d’Alene