Dear Editor:
Fred Harrison’s column, “Cultural Suicide — How Feminism Failed Women and Left Wyoming Empty,” blames feminism, contraception, abortion rights and women’s roles for declining birth rates and Wyoming’s demographic challenges.
That argument dishonors women, motherhood and Wyoming families. It treats women as instruments of population policy and reproductive control as a solution to economic problems.
I am a Wyoming woman, business owner and reproductive-rights advocate whose family has six generations of roots in Wyoming.
I value families and our communities. Those values are compatible with women retaining authority over their bodies, health and futures.
If Wyoming wants more young people to stay and raise children here, we should ask what families need: affordable housing, childcare, maternity care and jobs with adequate wages, health insurance and parental leave. Those questions have more practical value than blaming feminism.
Wyoming must also confront its gender wage disparity.
The 2023 American Community Survey estimated that Wyoming women working full time, year-round earned 69.4 cents for every dollar earned by comparable men—one of the nation’s largest gender pay gaps. (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS Table S2411.)
That gap affects whether women can afford housing, childcare, health insurance, transportation and time away after childbirth. It affects entire families.
A state cannot economically undervalue women and then accuse them of failing society because they delay motherhood or have fewer children.
Wyoming’s minimum wage remains $5.15 an hour. Most federally covered employees must instead receive $7.25. Full-time work at that rate yields only $15,080 annually before taxes.
The federal minimum has not increased since 2009. (Wyo. Stat. § 27-4-202; U.S. Department of Labor.)
Low wages disproportionately affect women in childcare, hospitality, retail, caregiving and other essential service occupations.
A woman earning near-minimum wages does not need a lecture about her obligation to reproduce. She needs income that can cover rent, groceries, transportation, medical care and childcare.
If Wyoming leaders genuinely want stronger families, they should consider a gradual, economically responsible increase in the minimum wage alongside pay equity, affordable childcare, rural maternity care and meaningful family-leave options.
Wyoming cannot call motherhood society’s highest calling while structuring its economy so many working women cannot afford it.
Reproductive freedom does not force women to avoid motherhood.
It allows women to decide whether and when to become mothers. Contraception helps couples plan families. Maternal care protects women and babies.
Abortion care may become necessary when pregnancy threatens a woman’s health, involves a devastating fetal diagnosis or presents circumstances outsiders cannot understand.
Harrison’s inflammatory description of later abortion care, suggesting women and physicians casually end pregnancies at “the moment of birth,” erases medical reality.
In 2021, the CDC reported 93.5% of abortions occurred at or before 13 weeks and 0.3% at or after 21 weeks. (CDC, “Abortion Surveillance—United States, 2021,” Table 10.)
Later cases can involve serious health threats or severe fetal diagnoses. They are not procedures performed “at the moment of birth.” Families deserve compassion and competent care—not political theater.
It is unreasonable to attribute decades of demographic change to one social movement.
Wyoming’s population is shaped by aging, young adults leaving, limited opportunities, higher housing costs, distance from services and boom-and-bust economies.
Census estimates show Wyoming’s population declined slightly from April 2020 to July 2023, then grew by July 2024. (U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates.)
Those shifts do not prove women’s rights caused Wyoming’s demographic challenges.
Taking away women’s choices will not correct those conditions and may make Wyoming less attractive to workers, physicians, teachers, entrepreneurs and families.
We should discuss declining birth rates and rural communities’ future—but not declare women’s equality a failure.
Let us invest in maternal care, rural hospitals, childcare, housing, education and opportunity.
Let us support fathers and mothers and recognize that raising children is a responsibility shared by families, employers and communities.
Most importantly, let us trust Wyoming women.
Women’s freedom did not empty Wyoming. Young people leave when they cannot find the careers, wages, housing, health care and family support needed to build a future.
If Wyoming wants more families, it should become a place where choosing to raise children does not require sacrificing economic security, medical autonomy or equal opportunity.
Supporting motherhood requires more than praising it. It requires making motherhood economically possible.
Sincerely,
Wendy Volk, Cheyenne
