LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Abortion clinic must be closed
4/7/2014I disagree with your suggestion that the Ohio Department of Health should allow Capital Care Network, Toledo’s last abortion clinic, to remain open (“Abortion battle,” editorial, March 30).
Your editorial calls Ohio’s law that prohibits abortion clinics from forming patient transfer agreements with taxpayer-funded hospitals “Draconian.” What’s truly Draconian is the 41-year-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows the killing of unborn infants. Also Draconian is the implication that taxpayer funds should be used to pay for it.
Our society needs to cultivate a new respect for the sanctity and dignity of human life. Every human life is a gift from God that is sacred, inviolable, and unrepeatable.
We need to continue to address the systemic causes that force individuals to consider abortion. But at the same time, we must stop the killing.
It is contrary to human decency to rationalize that abortion clinics protect women’s health and safety, while killing their innocent children. The closing of Capital Care Network would be a step in the right direction.
GARY THRUN
Monclova Township
Editor’s note: The writer is deacon of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Toledo.
Abortion, poverty link explored
Two related issues were reported in your March 30 edition: the drive to eliminate abortion clinics and the increase in poverty rates in Toledo and Ohio (“Author to discuss ‘hidden rules of poverty’ at forum; need for assistance still rising locally”).
As abortions have gone down, out-of-wedlock births and poverty rates have gone up. Ohio Department of Health statistics show that while abortions decreased in the state from 35,000 in 1999 to 24,000 in 2011, the proportion of births to unwed mothers increased from 34.1 percent to 43.7 percent between 1999 and 2010.
During this period, the state’s poverty rate went up by 57.7 percent, as you reported. Because 87 percent of abortions are performed on single women, according to state statistics, it is reasonable to assume that if abortion access is further restricted, more children will be born into poverty.
What are anti-abortion forces and their political allies doing to deal with these realities? Unless they want to see our state become more impoverished, they need to come up with programs to prevent the growth of unwanted pregnancies that result in the demand for abortions. Simple opposition to abortion is not enough.
ROBERT KELSO
Sylvania Township
Birth control to curb abortions
If more women would take responsibility for birth control, abortions would not be needed. Birth control is available to anyone who is willing to use it.
Men also should be responsible enough to care about a child being wanted or unwanted. No life is worth wasting.
MARY JO SCOTT
Erie, Mich.