If Sen. Susan Collins votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, she will be acting against the health and welfare of about half of our nation’s citizens: namely, women.

Banning access to any abortion, even to save the life of the mother or in cases of pregnancies resulting from rape, is unacceptable and inhumane. To criminalize abortion would reduce women to seek illegal back-street abortions.

Does the senator remember those days? At age 80, I do remember the countless women maimed and killed by such procedures.

In 1969, after three miscarriages, I conceived a fourth pregnancy with my husband. This went very badly. I could not hold down any food for over 10 weeks and lost 40 pounds. At 6 feet tall, aged 32, I weighed 118 pounds.

My doctors told me I would not survive unless the pregnancy were terminated. Even then, I had to see two psychiatrists and undergo some truly humiliating procedures before receiving a therapeutic abortion at 16 weeks. Later we were told that we were “immunologically incompatible.” My body rejected the first three pregnancies; the fourth succeeded in implanting itself and began to reject me.

Has Sen. Collins really considered what Kavanaugh’s appointment would mean to the young women in her family, should they ever be in my situation? No woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy that will kill her or to bear more children than she can properly care for.

On average, it takes two years for a woman’s body to fully recover from the stress and depletion of a full-term pregnancy and birth. Should she conceive much earlier than that, both her health and that of her unborn baby will inevitably be compromised.

On behalf of every girl and woman citizen of the United States of America, I implore that Sen. Collins not vote to approve Mr. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Anne Stebbins Funderburk

Scarborough

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