Editors called for a vigorous response to stem the troubling chipping away of reproductive rights (“Halt erosion of abortion rights,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, May 24), and recounted Hawaii’s progressive abortion stance as first in the nation to allow elective abortion up to the point of viability.

Curious, I read our state law, and found Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) §453-16 (e) explicitly grants the right to refuse to participate in an abortion. This seems to call into question Hawaii Attorney General Clare Connors suing to block the Trump administration’s “conscience protection rule” given we already have that “license to discriminate.”

HRS §453-16 further cites a Hawaii federal court decision: “Fetus in last trimester was vested with all rights of human beings.” Intrigued, I read and was pleasantly surprised by an old-fashioned willingness to contemplate human rights of the unborn.

Nobody denies that pregnant women have human rights. But human rights obviously start sometime: Every reader has them, and all were once a fetus. So, when is that vesting? Public discussion is long overdue.

David Beers

Waipahu

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