People demonstrate in support of abortion rights Aug. 5 outside the Indiana state Senate chambers in Indianapolis shortly before the vote to accept Senate Bill 1, making the Indiana legislature the first in the nation to restrict abortions after the Dobbs decision. (Cheney Orr/Reuters)

Regarding the Aug. 7 front-page article “Indiana faces abortion fallout”:

Indiana becoming the first state to pass an antiabortion law post-Dobbs is reminiscent of Indiana becoming the first state to pass forced sterilization, in 1907. To understand the state’s history of white-supremacist and misogynist legislation — catering to the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society and other extremist groups — one needs to review the state’s conservative religious and political cultures. Not that this will liberate its citizens, but it gives context showing the state’s long history of oppressing individual liberty.

Fred Muir, Annapolis

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