Is anyone actually “pro-abortion”?
Re: “Dem voters will have clear choice,” July 18 David Harsanyi column.
David Harsanyi quotes Leslie Hanks of Colorado Right to Life as referring to the “Democratic machine, the one that always votes pro-abortion.” Once and for all, can’t we get this right? No one is pro-abortion. If we support the state’s right to impose the death penalty, does that mean we’re “pro-execution,” or if we donate to the Dumb Friends League does it mean we’re “pro-euthanizing puppies”? I’ve never heard a single young woman say, “Gee, I can’t wait to have an abortion!”
There has never been a time when women were not having abortions. If we could eliminate ignorance, poverty, sexual abuse and sexual assault, as well as a host of diseases, we might approach that ideal, but making abortion illegal will not eliminate women seeking abortions any more than making murder illegal will stop people from killing one another. I hope I never have to make the choice of whether to have an abortion, sit on a jury where the death penalty is possible, or put unwanted kittens in a gas chamber. But if I do, I hope that there are informed people available, both pro-life and pro-choice, who won’t be prosecuted for helping me make my choice.
A. Lynn Buschhoff, Denver
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Re: “Abortion and the U.S. Supreme Court,” July 15 Open Forum.
Letter-writer Jim Jones wrote that “Abortion is the most important and contentious moral question of our age.” After considerable thought on this weighty matter, I’ve decided he’s absolutely right.
Obviously, when abortion is abolished, the first thing to occur is that anti abortionists, having nothing else to do, will take all the low income teenage girls into their homes during their pregnancy, adopt unwanted children, and then cheerfully support the girls until they complete their education and are self-sufficient.
With abortion gone, the drug problem will fade away, as everybody will be content. Alcoholism will disappear, too, for the same reason.
The problems in Iraq will settle down, the Sunnis will see that Shiites and Americans are OK, so our boys and girls can come home in peace.
Terrorists will cease their wickedness and convert their bombs to fertilizer and raise crops instead of killing people.
We’ll be busy hammering swords into plowshares, unemployment will end, global warming will fade away, we’ll find inexhaustible supplies of petroleum, smog will disappear, taxes will go down, the budget will balance, the national debt will be paid, and Bush will admit he lied in the first place.
Tom Johnson, Lakewood
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Debate over state Referenda C and D
Re: “Dems’ take on taxes gets a C or D,” July 14 David Harsanyi column.
David Harsanyi writes that Referendums C and D are equivalent to paying for an $80 purchase with a $100 bill and getting no change.
A much more apt analogy is this: You walk into a computer outlet and buy a shiny new computer system for $1,500. When you open the box, you find a rebate form that says: “This product is subject to a possible rebate, depending on sales. Call us in six months.”
Six months go by and you pick up the phone. “Yes,” says the friendly customer service representative, “we’ve had an especially good year. Your rebate is worth $50. But,” she continues, this time a little quieter, “we have a rule here at work. No raises or adequate health insurance unless the rebates go uncollected. Also, no capital investments of any kind. I’m talking to you on a rotary phone and sitting at a 7-year-old computer that’s running MS-DOS. I haven’t had a raise in five years and I pay for inadequate health insurance out of my own pocket.”
She pauses, then continues in a whisper. “So, you have a choice. You can get the $50 back, or you can let us keep it. If enough of you forgo the rebate – money that you’ve already spent, incidentally – we might actually get a decent raise or access to proper health care. But it’s your call.”
That’s the real choice presented by C and D, and it’s a no-brainer for anyone living outside of Harsanyi’s tax-free utopia (i.e., the real world).
David Gleeson, Superior
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Military recruiting and political support
Re: “General: Recruiting slow because peril is ‘misrepresented,”‘ July 13 news story.
Lt. Gen. Steven Blum thinks recruiting is slow because of the perception that being a soldier is a dangerous job – but perhaps he is overlooking a different explanation. A wise man once said that the most important tool a soldier can have is a reason to be there.
Before the war, many skeptics did not believe the WMD claims; the Downing Street Memo validates that skepticism. What is the real reason George W. Bush drove us to war? Did he want to be a “war president,” to improve his chance of getting re-elected, to occupy Iraq and take advantage of strategic and economic resources there?
If those who supported Bush would sign up and encourage their children to also sign up, the recruiting problem would go away.
Mike Worford, Denver
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Re: “Clinton, Salazar call for troop growth,” July 14 news story.
This article neglected to mention that the Democrats used to be pro-military until Vietnam, when they turned rabidly anti-military. Now a few top Democrats may be throwing a little money at the military so as to make the party appear patriotic and pro-military.
Remember the selection of Sen. John Kerry as the only military candidate the Democrats had? After being the specific cause for several decades (by calling for reductions in military spending) as to why our soldiers have insufficient body armor, vehicle armor, personal weaponry and so forth – yet blaming the opposition for the lack of armor – it would have been nice for the article to question whether this new military tolerance is an upcoming election propaganda strategy or an actual significant shift in party attitude.
Michael Thau, Centennial
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Politics and mad cow
Re: “Democrats going mad over the mad-cow ‘threat,”‘ July 14 From Harrop column.
Froma Harrop raises the fear of intrusion of politics into science, public health, food safety, etc., to unheard-of levels. Her column highlights the manipulation of sound science and technology by politicos.
The “just-one-cow” argument may be politically correct, but remains epidemiologically unacceptable. What would the country do if “just one” case of smallpox were to be found within our borders? Granted, the human form of mad cow-derived Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease would be much less of a threat than smallpox, but the principles of disease prevention, surveillance and eradication are the same for mad cow as for smallpox.
It is disturbing that in all the heated debate about mad cow, no reference is made to the British experience. What could have been a localized problem ended up in the destruction of tens of thousands (or more) of cattle, the spread of the disease to the European continent, and to the death of a few hundred humans.
This issue is not about a political party “growing a reputation as the party of sound science,” or the “Democrats’ prospects in the heartland,” or the changing of “America’s center” from “raw Republican red to medium-rare pink.”
In the end, our export markets will only suffer serious damage if we choose to be in denial.
Ted Kramer, Fort Collins
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Class act from Denver
As a graduate of Columbine High School and later the University of Denver, I have strong ties to the area, although I am now a resident of Reno, Nev. It is exciting each year when past and present Denver Broncos play the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe.
This year, Broncos coach Mike Shanahan and Donald Trump played together. I followed them for several holes. As they came off the course, children in the grandstand asked, “Mr. Trump, may I have a ball?” Trump ignored them, and groans from the grandstand were audible. As Shanahan came off the course, the children ran to the edge and asked him for his ball. He threw balls into the stands and the crowd applauded him.
I’m sure the crowd at that stand was interested in seeing Trump, but Shanahan was the class act who drew the applause.
Corine Cuvelier, Reno, Nev.
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