Sounding off: Roe and racism

I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to presume that many of the people demonstrating against the Supreme Court draft decision on abortion also participate in protests under the banner of Black Lives Matter. A closer investigation of abortions and racism may be helpful.

Blacks and Hispanics combined make up less than 30% of America’s population, yet over 55% of abortions are performed on these groups.

Planned Parenthood is savvy in knowing its clientele and where they live. Almost 80% of Planned Parenthood clinics are located within walking distance of poor minority neighborhoods. The center in Pittsburgh is located in a census tract with over 21% minority population while Allegheny County is around 13%. It is much worse in cities like Houston, Chicago and Baltimore. In Philadelphia, there are three times the percentage of Blacks and Hispanics within a 2-mile walking distance of the clinic than in the county as a whole.

“Protectingblacklife.org” can elaborate on these statistics.

Everyone I know is against racism, but when is racism relevant, at age 6, 10, 18? Perhaps the emphasis on destroying Black and Hispanic lives in the womb is the place to start?

Ed Klein, Shanksville

Preserve women’s sports

“Follow the science.” Isn’t that what we constantly hear when it comes to mandates and policies concerning covid-19? Yet when it comes to transgender athletes participating in women’s sports, there is often silence on science. So let’s follow that science and common sense.

There are too many biological differences — physical and cognitive — between males and females to list here. Drugs used to suppress hormones or create others do not alter the biological sex of an individual and do not eliminate the differences and advantages of being a biological male competing against biological females.

We can have empathy for transgender athletes but should remain focused on facts, not emotions and rhetoric. Factually, we are talking about individuals who are biologically male who want to be female, with or without the use of drugs. If we continue to allow these males to compete in women’s sports at the high school or collegiate level, we will erase 50 years of progress under Title IX.

It’s time for Pennsylvania legislators to enact policies based on science and common sense, which will ban biological males from women’s sports. Please write your local representatives and encourage them to preserve women’s sports for biological women only.

Nancy Pleskovitch, Ligonier

We need thoughtful leaders, less guns

The hatred and intolerance in this country, very intentionally built over the past several decades, is going to take sustained effort from thoughtful, conscientious leaders to tear down. Unfortunately, our broken political system reduces the electability of thoughtful, conscientious people more with every cycle. But until we stop flooding the country with guns (especially those with no sporting use) and reverse that tide, the mass shootings ARE. NOT. GOING. TO. STOP.

Jonathan Love, Harrison

Keep Pa.’s primary as is

I have two issues.

The first issue is that the primary election’s job is to select a party’s candidate for the general election. This is solely the prerogative of those in that party’s body of voters. This is not for nonparty voters to decide, or, for that matter, have any effect at all. If the party wants to nominate a far left or right candidate, that is their business to do so. Allowing others to vote can and has helped to dilute the influence of regular party members. If someone wants to have party influence, all they have to do is join that party. It is free and easy to do, so why not do it?

The second issue is that of having political parties in the first place. That reason is to give people of like minds on the public issues of the day a way to form a cohesive group that is trying to have influence over any public issue or policy. The fact that we have two major parties is actually a benefit. If you want to see how we would govern ourselves with multiple parties, just look to Europe, especially Italy and France, to see how numerous parties within their legislatures try to govern. When their parliaments are seated, the first thing they do is decide who is actually in charge. This usually requires many groups jockeying for position and influence, and nothing gets done.

Tom Portante, O’Hara

Jesus never preached about abortion

Anyone remember Bizarro World Superman who did everything opposite from the real Superman? Republicans apparently believe in a Bizarro Jesus who harps on abortion as the central issue of Christianity and condemns people for being “woke” — that is, recognizing and working to right civil inequity.

In the actual Gospels, however, Jesus preaches a ministry of all-embracing love, especially toward society’s despised and rejected, such as the Samaritans. The Gospel Jesus speaks not one single, solitary word about abortion even though it was a common procedure in Rome of the day.

How is it that today so many Christians and their churches have come to dwell on that one issue, about which the religion’s founder is totally silent, while those who emphasize inclusion and eradication of prejudice, which were central to Christ’s earthly message, are demonized?

The answer is that abortion is cynically used as a culture war political wedge to gain worldly power, which is prioritized over looking inward and seeking the kingdom of heaven as spoken of in the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount.

David Ninehouser, Ambridge

We must learn history to continue journey to equality

I’m still not sure what the bugaboo words “critical race theory” mean that people seem to be so afraid of. But we do need to teach true American history, even if it is painful. Slavery, lynchings, segregation, Jim Crow laws, red-lining, the Tulsa race massacre (and others), the Scottsboro boys and more are all part of our history and should be acknowledged and taught.

We are on a journey from slavery and segregation to full equality. We are not there yet, but we have come a long way in the past 50 years.

The beauty of America is that, by fits and starts, we try to uphold the ideals we profess. If we don’t know where the journey started, how can we celebrate our progress and aspire to reach the end?

Mary Beth Walling, North Huntingdon

God bless the Ukrainians

Letter-writer Kathleen Bollinger (“More to the story on Ukraine”) has a point that liberal media is one-sided and that Russia and Ukraine have been fighting since 2014, but that is all.

Russians are not bad people, but they endure repression of religion, free speech and the truth. Now we have the ruling military government mindset that has a history of horrors dating back to the deaths of 20 million Russians directly linked to Stalin up to today’s Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who has his own credits of missing people, including journalists.

You cannot be that disengaged to see that the Russian government has always hated the freedoms we enjoy in the West. Now Putin is threatening Sweden and Finland and is meddling in Africa’s politics. Do you remember Georgia, and Chechnya? How about the annexation of Crimea? If Ukraine falls, Putin will control a huge section of the eastern coastline of the Black Sea. This means military and economic domination of Eastern Europe. You getting the picture?

World leaders have called Putin and some of his officers war criminals. You don’t get that title by being the “Good Humor” man. The BBC has reported on the rape of women and children, atrocities committed against innocent civilians, and mass murders covered in mass graves.

Ms. Bollinger, you need to talk to some local refugees about the horrors of Russian domination; or better yet, volunteer as an aid worker in Poland to see firsthand what horror really looks like.

God bless these people in their fight for freedom.

Jack Juris, Buffalo Township