Richard Shafer, Grand Forks
The 2012 Republican National Convention adopted a platform calling for a "Human Life Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution that would prohibit American women from exercising their basic reproductive rights.
Candidates Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan support such an amendment, and North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven helped draft the platform. Congressman Rick Berg has supported a number of bills aimed as restricting women's rights, while candidate Kevin Cramer has vocalized his opposition to reproductive rights for women throughout his current campaign.
It is patently un-American to support such government intervention in what should be a woman's right to choose. North Dakota candidates Heidi Heitkamp and Pam Gulleson will move us away from this Sharia-like thinking that is guiding the patriarchal Republican Party and threatens freedom. Heitkamp and Gulleson will also resist the unhindered exploitation and plunder of our natural resources that our Legislature seems willing to overlook while it panders to big energy interests.
Finally, we need compassionate elected officials like Heitkamp and Gulleson to resist efforts of insurance company lobbyists and CEOs to influence their GOP friends in Congress to overturn the hard-won, progressive and humane health care reforms we collectively accomplished in recent years. These reforms, if left in place, will protect the uninsured and under-insured, including 70,000 North Dakota children who don't have adequate protection.
Please vote for candidates in November who are not beholden to the wealthiest 1 percent, who will protect our deteriorating environment and who will support the rights of women to control their own reproductive health.