Matthee will work to help women

A couple of our GOP candidates for the Idaho Legislature have conceded that the abortion ban might have gone “too far” and that it should be “revisited.” Okay, but what are we going to do about it? At the recent legislative candidate forum, I waited — no doubt naively  — for specifics, and didn’t get them. I get it; it’s a touchy subject for them who, as members of a badly splintered party, are trying to appeal to all Republican voters.

But Idaho is in a full-blown health care crisis that extends past pregnant women to all women, and to men, as doctors are leaving Idaho for states where they can practice medicine without the cloud of criminalization hanging over their heads. The time for caution — if there ever was a time — has passed.

So I'll spell out what Karen Matthee would do if you vote to send her to Boise in November. She will work to re-empower our physicians to determine when an abortion is medically necessary to save a woman’s life, her health and fertility. And Karen would work to reverse the “bounty” law that allows the immediate family members of a rapist to sue a doctor that performs a rape victim’s abortion for a minimum of $20,000.

Abortion should not be a method of birth control. Of course not. Doctors in our county never treated it as such. But it is life and health-saving health care in situations where a pregnancy has gone horribly wrong.

In November, vote for Karen Matthee. kmattheeforidaho.com

LINDA LARSON

Sandpoint