Fresno Bee letters: On abortion, importance of elections, Putin and the American right

Many ways to avoid unwanted babies

While I believe strongly in equal rights for women, I do believe there is a limit to those rights when a woman demands the right to take a developing life by abortion. I am not unsympathetic to those who for whatever reason do not wish to proceed with an unwanted pregnancy, but it seems so selfish and irresponsible when there are numerous ways to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.

Playing God is wrong and is an arrogant solution to this problem. In this country a baby can be put up for adoption and/or left at a hospital or fire station after birth. Please use birth control so that an abortion isn’t necessary. Have some compassion and take responsibility. Abortion is wrong.

High court mistaken on abortion

It is an outrage that the Supreme Court is considering overturning Roe v. Wade and no longer allowing control to women over their reproductive rights. Ruling that ending a pregnancy is acceptable until six weeks is not satisfactory since many women, especially those less likely to get medical care, may not even know they are pregnant at that time.

If men could have babies, you can be sure this wouldn’t be happening. Every woman, and men as well, should rise up and protest loudly and clearly this assault on individual freedom. There should be peaceful demonstrations throughout the country and especially in Washington, D.C. If the worst happens, we will return to the days when women put their lives and health at stake with back-alley illegal abortions as their only way out of untenable and undesirable situations. Unwanted children are more likely to have physical and mental health problems at great emotional and monetary cost to themselves, the family, and society. If this happens it is the beginning of the slippery slope of descent to government control.

Simply put, abortion is murder

This law should have been reversed years ago.Abortion is murder in the 1st degree.

Anyone having an abortion should be tried for murder unless it is to save the mother’s life.

Think about it. If someone goes out and kills someone, that is murder. Yet if a mother kills her child, isn’t that murder also? Yes.

Yes, elections really do matter

We told you that “all elections matter.” Now you can see that they do. Do you really want a “holier than thou” govenment to rule the personal aspects of your life? This is only the beginning. Elections do matter.

Fresno police sweeps misguided

The recent headline of a commentary in The Bee, “Gang sweep today, more crime tomorrow,” infers that regardless of the gang sweep (a massively expensive operation) there is still more crime the next day; this is an inherent flaw; we can not invest primarily into policing.

Policing is not prevention.

Policing as a strategy cannot and will never address the root cause of social or economic distress. Without changing the material/lived conditions of the people and the communities they call home, we will continue to manifest the symptoms of survival. Fresno’s police and judicial systems are overly resourced addressing crime.

The Fresno Police Department is well provided for, to the tune of $205-plus million and an additional $10 million from the ARPA fund. Fresno Police Department holds 40% of the city's current budget.

I think we’ve all heard the phrase “hurt people, hurt people;” this root “cause” is what I’d like Fresnans to consciously and openly sit, feel, and re-think.

Hurt people hurt people. A simple phrase with a lot of truth. People who are causing harm to self/others often do so because they are acting out of their own pain, fear, and suffering. In my clinical experience, time and time again, this is the common narrative I hear from my clients.

Thoughtful compassion, choices, and boundaries belong together. Compassion and boundaries do not require us to be dormant.

What happens when hurt people lead hurt people? What happens when people and the system respond from their own unresolved trauma to sweep crime away? What heals/helps people and communities? What harms people and communities?

He questions student-debt relief

I don’t get student debt relief. My daughter is going to Fresno State for her teaching credential, she went to Pacific to get her bachelor’s, after associate’s at Fresno City; she has worked and paid her own tuition her entire education. She and her husband are paying for her continued education as she goes.

I fed her and put a roof over her head for 25 years; her grades have been her responsibility since she was in grade school. We made her responsible to herself and she did the rest.

I’m not against helping and affordable education; the cost is outrageous to me. But debt relief, interest free loans I’m not to sure about; some of us paid our way and taught our children to pay theirs.

Who is going to pay her back? Seriously, she pays, but other get off for free.

That’s not the American way, friends.

Putin gets support of American right

It is not surprising that most of the Americans who have shown a favorable view of Vladimir Putin, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, are right-wingers. Since 2012 Putin’s regime has engaged in a wide-ranging effort to appeal to ultraconservative groups in Europe and the United States. The anti-gay, misogynistic, and anti-democratic rhetoric of Putin and his acolytes has struck a responsive chord with reactionary forces in the West, as demonstrated by Marine Le Pen in France and Victor Orban in Hungary.

In our country, Donald Trump praised Putin after the invasion of Ukraine and has refused to admit that Putin is evil. Tucker Carlson has mirrored Putin’s talking points so much that clips from his show have been shown on state-controlled television in Russia.

The America First movement of Trump’s supporters resembles the America First movement of 1940 and 1941 not only in its isolationism, but also in its sympathy for the ideology of an authoritarian and aggressive regime in Europe. Many of those in the America First movement at that earlier time found elements of the Nazis’ ideology such as anti-semitism appealing. And some people in this country today share Putin’s hostility toward liberal democratic values.

This story was originally published May 15, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fresno Bee letters: On abortion, importance of elections, Putin and the American right."