Baby-killing clinics don’t deserve support
Editor Kristin Palpini says, “Abortion isn’t the murder of a baby” (Between the Lines: Defund cancer screenings? Oct. 1-7, 2015). Excuse me? Of course it is. What a despicable sentiment! Planned Parenthood is in the business of ending lives, not saving lives. We’ve been told women go to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings, but CEO and President Cecile Richards just admitted last month that there are no mammogram machines in any of her baby-killing clinics. We’ve been told there is no organ trafficking at Planned Parenthood, but in several videos, abortionists have been caught laughing and sipping wine as they play a morbid game of The Price Is Right with dead baby pieces. Libs are horrified when innocent people are shot to death, yet every day at Planned Parenthood innocent people are murdered. And you libs couldn’t care less.
Having no tattoos saved my skin
This is not a tattoo story. I have no tattoos. After men with guns in El Salvador surrounded me shouting “Show us your tattoos! Show us your tattoos!” and I had none to show and so was eventually released — alive — I vowed never to get a tattoo. That was 26 years ago.
I was a young freelance journalist in El Salvador in 1989 during a major uprising by leftist rebels against their right-wing government, dominated by death squads. After spending the night with a small rebel force in the capitol I was captured by enraged soldiers who were searching for “a tall North American terrorist with a big bushy beard and tattoos.” The Salvadoran army was convinced that their problem was foreign fighters flocking to the rebel ranks, and they were dead keen to capture one.
I am 6’ 1” and have a goatee, and so fit their description. But I had no tattoos, and that was the mark of Cain they needed. When I got back to the States in ’93 tattoos were all the rage, the mark of the hipster and tribal youth, powered by new technologies.
I passed.
Gun laws are here to protect us from ‘law-abiding’ gun owners
It’s time to let go of the myth that controlling the gun purchases of law-abiding citizens will not stop the carnage because criminals will still have guns. We must know by now that the perpetrators of mass shootings are law-abiding citizens using legally purchased guns and assault weapons. It is impossible to scrutinize the mind of every gun purchaser with any accuracy so those who have no record of arrest or mental illness can buy whatever guns they want. These shooters at schools, movie theaters, malls, churches, etc. are all first timers.
They are law-abiding citizens until they aren’t and then it’s too late.
Having a gun in the home will not make you safer. It puts you and your family in danger. Homes with guns are much more likely to have a suicide, a homicide, an accident or a home break-in. The best we can do is take assault weapons and high capacity magazines off the market and limit sales to one gun per month which will limit the supply to the black market.
We need to stop the “law-abiding” citizens who are killing our children with their legally purchased guns.
Abortion is not the murder of a child. Pregnancies that are not carried out for whatever reason prevents a potential life from becoming a person. If you are ideologically against any uncompleted pregnancies, you are entitled to your opinion. Hopefully you will never have to be in the situation where you need to consider ending a pregnancy. Hear this however, there will always be women who need abortion services. That is not hyperbole that is fact.
In terms of the videos released, I would encourage some critical thinking on both the source of the videos as well as the fact that whether or not the language was distasteful to you- Planned Parenthood has not been found guilty of anything. Planned Parenthood has now voluntarily opted out of very legal reimbursement and chosen to absorb the cost of fetal tissue donation storage and transport. How much profit were they making before? Reimbursement costs. What are they receiving now? Nothing. Has any of this changed anybody’s mind about anything? Doubtful.
Hysterical cries of murdering babies and organ trafficking are easily believed fiction by those who know nothing about Planned Parenthood except that some of the location provide abortions. Men and women use Planned Parenthood for testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections as well as HIV tests and general gynecological care.
For those who feel their federal tax money shouldn’t go towards abortions, fear not- the Hyde Amendment, a rider piece of legislation has been attached to annual appropriation bills since 1976. There is no federal funding of abortion unless the women’s life is in danger or rape/incest can be proven.
Innocent people being shot is wholly separate from ending a pregnancy. Anyway you try to tie that together ignores and devalues the difference between a live human being who is currently existing independently of another and the contents of a women’s uterus. It is not the same thing. Potential life is not the same. Men are in the position of never being able to carry a potential life and therefore never having to fully make a choice about ending a pregnancy. Perhaps one should take that into consideration before condemning the existing autonomous women that are in the situation to make that choice.
Planned Parenthood DOES breast cancer screenings- OBGYN’s and other women’s health centers follow the same policy of breast cancer screenings in house and if needed the women are then referred to a radiological facility for mammograms. That is standard procedure and best practices.