Let’s Not Recall Maxine Most, Louisville’s Reproductive Rights Champion

Louisville is lucky to have a reproductive right’s champion on City Council, Maxine Most. She’s not attempting to make medical decisions or play doctor. Instead, Maxine is applying two bedrock principles—equity and inclusiveness—to medical care. Simply put Maxine believes that equity and inclusiveness demand that pregnant persons have access to all evidence-based medical care.

Recent articles in the Daily Camera and other newspapers share horrifying stories about women who need abortions to save their lives being sent home to become sicker and their lives more endangered. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists unequivocally states that “Induced abortion is an essential component of women’s health care” because “Pregnancy complications, including placental abruption, bleeding from placenta previa, preeclampsia or eclampsia, and cardiac or renal conditions, may be so severe that abortion is the only measure to preserve a woman’s health or save her life.”  https://www.acog.org/advocacy/facts-are-important/abortion-is-healthcare

And, yet not all hospitals, including AdventHealth Avista (Avista) in Louisville, provide abortions when necessary to preserve the health or life of a pregnant person. Avista describes its care as “Rooted in Faith.”  AdventHealth, to which Avista belongs, is a major player in the health care marketplace; It is “one of the largest health care providers in the United States, with thousands of compassionate professionals working to Extend the Healing Ministry of Christ around the country.”  https://www.adventhealth.com/hospital/adventhealth-avista/mission-and-history

Even though Avista is a non-profit hospital—and as such does not contribute any tax revenue to the City— and in spite of its failure to provide evidence-based medicine, Maxine has done nothing to drive Avista from Louisville. Insinuations to the contrary are misleading. She is right to provide our community with accurate information, enabling pregnant persons and their families to choose whether to drive into Boulder.

To keep Maxine, vote no on the Ward 2 Recall.

Cathern Smith
Louisville, CO 80027