Date: Aug 11, 2005
Sent to but not published in Boston Globe

with Nancy R. Evans

Like his father before him, Mitt Romney has been brainwashed, as evidenced by his veto of the Emergency Contraception Bill. This time by far right radical fundamentalists.
He has been brainwashed into accepting bad science. The Emergency contraception pill does not cause an abortion. Like the uncontroversial IUD, the pill prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the lining of the womb. It is a prevention of conception, not the abortion of a conceived fetus.
He has been brainwashed into believing that the state has an interest in bringing to term any baby no matter how poor and unwelcoming the environment. If anything the state should be encouraging only the births of wanted children. The Roe v Wade decision, it is suggested, has caused the declining crime rates of 20 years later as unwanted fetuses could be aborted.
He has been brainwashed into believing that it is merely an inconvenience for a woman to carry to term a child conceived through rape or incest. This makes the Governor of the State of Massachusetts complicit in exacerbating the outcome of the rape of a citizen of the Commonwealth. That is not somewhere we like to see our Governor stand.
We encourage the Governor to rethink his position. It is hard to break out of the shackles of brainwashing but it can be done. We think the Governor will be well advised to return to the position he took four years ago when running for office.