Your Opinion: Kavanaugh would not protect right to choose

Dear Editor:

If Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Supreme Court, our rights will be under attack like never before. Trump and Pence already want Roe v. Wade to disappear, and with a nominee like Kavanaugh calling the shots, Roe is guaranteed to be gutted relentlessly.

A woman's personal healthcare decision should be entirely left up to the woman, and not influenced by conservative anti-choice policies. The fact that a woman's decision to have an abortion could be criminalized again is offensive and disgraceful. I refuse to allow women to become second-class citizens in this country once again.

The overwhelming majority of people in this country do not want to see abortion rights vanish, no matter their party affiliation. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll from June 2018 found that 81 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of Independents, and nearly half of Republicans support Roe v. Wade. Our senators need to remember this when they're voting on a Supreme Court nominee that is a surefire bet to decimate Roe v. Wade.

We cannot count on Kavanaugh to uphold the precedent previously set by the Supreme Court to protect a woman's right to choose. Roe would be directly threatened with him on the bench, and that is something that the American people will not stand for. I am calling on Senator Claire McCaskill to protect reproductive freedom for all Missourians once again by voting no on Kavanaugh.