LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Lawmakers heed public, not polls
4/22/2013Your April 12 editorial “UTMC’s abortion cave-in” left a bad taste in my mouth. The Blade has lamented the passage of laws around the country that limit or erase a women’s access to abortion, or what you call “reproductive rights.”
Did it ever occur to you that this is happening because lawmakers are listening to their constituents and not biased opinion polls?
If Mike Gonidakis, head of Ohio Right to Life, were pro-abortion, The Blade would have no problem with his appointment to the State Medical Board of Ohio. It appears that The Blade is the one with the agenda.
CHRISTINE RUPP
Oregon
UT’s action must be reversed
The cancellation of transfer agreements by University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs, although legal and within his authority, will have dire consequences (“UT accused of caving to abortion opponents; State law doesn’t prohibit contracts,” April 6).
Without these agreements, Ohio could close down both of Toledo’s abortion providers. A woman’s right to choose to have or not to have an abortion is a legal and essential civil liberty.
This transfer agreement gambit effectively will threaten that right. Dr. Jacobs should reverse this action.
STEVE MILLER
Chairman Northwest Ohio Chapter American Civil Liberties Union Scottwood Avenue
What of couple’s responsibility?
It is a shame that the University of Toledo Medical Center felt a likely political need to cancel its agreement with abortion clinics.
It is a shame that the writer of the April 14 Readers’ Forum letter “Women’s rights are eroding” in her own words “fought like the devil” to secure women’s rights, which of course were for more than the right to abort.
But it’s a greater shame that there is no call for responsibility in all these calls for rights. What of the responsibility of the woman and her man to the life she carries?
If we are to deny rights to others to secure rights for ourselves, then we have a responsibility to those who are denied, particularly the most vulnerable, or we are no society at all.
PAUL ROTHERMICH
Greenlawn Drive
When does airport have high volume?
Part of the response by a Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority spokesman to criticism of Toledo Express Airport was: “The downstairs gift shop is open at high-volume travel times; the food court/gift shop upstairs is open daily during all flight times” (“Toledo Express needs leadership,” Readers’ Forum, April 12).
Don’t the phrases “high-volume travel times” and “open daily during all flight times” smack of being oxymoronic?
JESSE OTTO, JR.
107th St.