To the Editor:

All Knox County residents want to learn the facts and develop their own opinions. After reading the Letter to the Editor from Patrick Kent, published in this newspaper on May 6, I felt compelled to respond. Each voter is entitled to their own opinion about the reproductive freedom ballot initiative, but it’s important to know the facts:

1. The petition, if enough signatures are gathered, requires the initiative to be placed on the ballot in November. The petition by itself changes no laws; signing the petition simply indicates that one wants voters to be able to cast their ballot in favor of, or opposed to, the text of the initiative. This is democracy at work.

2. The initiative does not change any existing laws about parental consent.

3. The initiative does not mention anything about sex changes.

4. The initiative summary reads as follows:

• Every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one's own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.

• The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with or discriminate against either an individual's voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual's health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.

• However, abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability. But in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient's life or health.

• As used in this Section, "Fetal viability" means "the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures. This is determined on a case-by-case basis"; and "State" includes any governmental entity and political subdivision.

• This section is self-executing. 

As I said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but let’s not try to change the facts. I hope this letter clarifies this issue for readers who would like to be able to trust what appears in their local newspaper.

Janet Byrne Smith

Gambier