Sounding off: Consequences of ending legal abortion

It is uncommon to think beyond the immediate consequences and side effects of an action … but it shouldn’t be. Consider the action of ending legal abortion in America. The immediate consequence would be increasing births. A side effect would be higher death rates among women because even when risks to their lives are only a few times greater than normal, such risks are real.

Another side effect is an even higher rate of early infant mortality in America when this rate is already the highest of any developed nation and nearly twice that of the average in developed nations! In fact, infant mortality tends higher in states with lower rates of abortion. These deaths are painful for the infant as well as for the parents.

Women will die from illegal abortions that can’t be stopped with laws, and others will be incarcerated. Do we really want to further increase the largest prison population in the world? Since many and possibly most abortions involve young women who are already marginalized, most such consequences will amount to punishing those who are already victimized by lack of opportunity.

A longer-range consequence will be a large rise in crime rates. Within 20 years of the legalization of abortion in America, crime rates plummeted. A Stanford study strongly linked much of this to legalized abortion just over 20 years ago.

A legal consequence would be the general loss of a right to privacy relative to governments.

Robert J. Reiland, O’Hara

A sad time for women in our world

I am a retiree on a fixed income, so I much appreciate the Trib’s e-newsletter, which I read every day. The May 15 newsletter, however, will remain in my thoughts for many days to come. The opening story featured a picture of a storage facility where a woman’s body was found. A man has been arrested for the murder.

Then I noticed a list of other articles in the May 15 issue: a man fatally shot his wife after accusing her of cheating; a man was arrested after his girlfriend reports injuries of a beating that required removal of her spleen; a man was charged with 15 felonies after a girl reported he began assaulting her at age 12; and, finally, a woman accused a man of forcing his way into her home and trying to suffocate her.

As a woman who has lived on this planet for 75 years, I am way too familiar with such articles — and articles like the one also in this edition about the protests against the U.S. Supreme Court’s apparent support for sending us back to the dark times before Roe v. Wade.

I have been a feminist since the 1970s and will be one until my dying day. But today’s local news just reflects what is happening in our whole country, and indeed, the whole world. How sad.

Wanda Rader, Salem

Solution to horrific school shootings:

Make every school a hard target with one entrance with an armed guard and a metal detector; keep all other doors locked. Protect a school like a Tiffany jewelry store.

Allow teachers with training to carry concealed pistols. Problem solved.

The government can ban guns, making everyone feel better, but this will result in failure just as the “war on drugs” has failed. A ban will allow organized crime another way to earn money, and criminals will still obtain guns. Private citizens who turn in their guns will be totally dependent on the police for protection. No matter how great a local police force is, they cannot be everywhere 24/7 . Citizens in low-income neighborhoods will be the most affected.

Unfortunately, as we have seen with past terror killings, a car can be used to kill, along with knives, hammers, etc.

Several years ago an armed churchgoer stopped a gunman who opened fire inside a Texas church and killed two people. He was awarded the state’s highest civilian honor, the Governor’s Medal of Courage. If this law-abiding citizen didn’t stop the shooter, many people would have been killed.

Russell Dejulio, Mt. Lebanon

Jesus on abortion — thou shalt not kill

I am writing in response to David Ninehouser’s letter “Jesus never preached about abortion” supporting the supposed “right” to abortion. To paraphrase, Ninehouser criticized Republicans (and Christians) for opposing abortion. To support his argument, Ninehouser wrote that Jesus spoke of God’s “all-embracing love” but never once mentioned abortion. Apparently, in Ninehouser’s view, aborting children promotes “equity” and is therefore perfectly compatible with Christian doctrine.

My response is this: The Bible also records that Jesus, in addition to being a God of love, becomes angry, hates unrighteousness and will judge unrepentant sinners. Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). Jesus also said that he came to fulfill the law, which includes the command: Thou shalt not kill.

Don Liddick, Bullskin

We should do what we can on climate change

I take issue with op-ed writer Dave Murray (“What would I give up for a climate emergency?”) on many counts. He doesn’t want to treat climate change as an emergency, describing a future without so many products made from fossil fuels, while not mentioning the biggest ones, transportation and electricity generation. He sees a binary situation, with no middle ground, such as conservation.

Instead, he proposes preposterous solutions, such as rerouting or mitigating the intensity of tornados and hurricanes. You’re an engineer , so please tell us how to do that. If this were possible, wouldn’t we be doing it already? And the increased intensity of storms is only part of the problem. Have you any solutions when New York City and Miami are underwater?

His essay has many errors. To pick one, he says that until 1492, we thought Earth was flat. False — we knew it was round, and in fact 2,000 years ago the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes correctly calculated its circumference. 1492 was Columbus’ voyage across the Atlantic, which proved nothing about the shape of the earth anyway.

We can conserve in so many areas, like plastic product wrapping, unnecessarily large vehicles, etc. Let’s generate as much of our electricity as possible without fossil fuels. And the mother of all our problems is overpopulation, which nobody seems to want to do anything about. Too many people, driving ever- bigger cars and heating ever-bigger houses. Since we won’t do anything to limit population, we can see nature doing it for us — wars, starvation and disease.

Fred Durig, Delmont

Biden, Pelosi have no power with Catholic church

Recently the San Francisco Examiner editorial board made an appeal to the pope to dismiss Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for his action of banning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from receiving Holy Communion due to her support of abortion.

Their assumed opinion, thinking the pope will listen to them, is as absurd as their statement that she is the “second-most powerful Catholic” in American politics — insinuating that Joe Biden is the most powerful Catholic in American politics.

Let’s be clear: Neither one of them have any power with the Catholic Church.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

Tom Pyo, Hempfield

Citizens kicked to curb

So unbelievable and disgusting is the fact that our governmental officials in Washington and in some of our states seem to have kicked the legal citizens of the United States of America to the curb.

Unbelievable that the day has come when we have to consider whether we buy a gallon of milk or a gallon of gas. Unbelievable that we have to sit and watch all of our hard-earned money that we’ve managed to invest for our future take a loss every day and pray that there will be some left to enjoy.

Unbelievable that more and more money is being sent to other countries to finance wars that have nothing to do with the United States of America while there is so much true need here at home.

Unbelievable is that illegal immigrants are being served on a silver platter whatever they need.

Disgusting is the fact that the legal citizens of the United States of America pay for the life of luxury of our politicians. For them, the words “hard times” are not in their vocabulary; they continue to live the good life as we pick up their tabs.

It’s time to rise up, pray and ask God for help taking back what we’re losing before it’s too late.

Shelia Hanlon, West Deer