Opinions: Letters to the editor

 published on Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Unintended pregnancy is to blame

(In response to Friday's column by Lindsay Wood titled "Undereducated equals overpopulated")

Wood's article gave some hard facts regarding the correlation between the education of women and fewer children. There is no doubt that our tiny planet is become overrun with people, but where the responsibility lies is a tougher question.

While I agree with the evidence in Ms. Wood's article, I feel there is another reason that more educated women have fewer children. The more self-aware, intelligent and reasoning a person is, the more the awesome, joyous and terrifying the responsibility of having a child appears to be.

In my sociology class, there was a statistic that absolutely amazed me: More than 50 percent of pregnancies in America are "unintended." This means, by default, that probably many of those cases have not even considered the gravity of such a decision, which brings me to my last point. Is anyone else tired of women footing the entire bill for this? I mean, men want to have a say in our right to choose, they want to be told when it's their baby and to have a say in what we do with it, but they definitely do not take the same level of responsibility for birth control that women do.

Believe me, if men could get pregnant, the bestselling pill wouldn't be Viagra or Cialis, it would be a pill to prevent pregnancy. I can't believe the best we can come up with is segregated schools for young girls (as suggested in Ms. Wood's article.)

Men, step up to the plate and assist both the educated and uneducated woman in preventing overpopulation. Do it for the planet, do it for your children yet to be.

Susan Bernard
Undergraduate

McCain for president? No, thank you

(In response to Monday's column by T.J. Shope titled "Vote McCain for Arizona")

Once again, T.J. Shope shows his knee-jerk love of all things Republican and his complete refusal to let reality stand in his way.

John McCain has an abysmal record on women's issues, including the right to choose, and supports abstinence-only sex education, despite what empirical data has to say on that issue. His civil rights record is equally poor, as he believes that GLBT people are not deserving of the same hate crime and anti-discrimination laws that everyone else is safeguarded by. He also wants to ignore the establishment clause by allowing creationism and school sponsored prayer into public schools.

And then there is his assault on habeas corpus, the fair trial and the Fourth Amendment, where he voted "no" on allowing Gitmo detainees to file writs of habeas corpus and actually be charged with a crime. He also voted "no" on making the CIA accountable for its interrogation (read: torture) methods. Oh, and did I mention that he voted to pass, reauthorize and extend the unconstitutional wiretapping provisions of the Patriot Act and voted against banning water-boarding and other torture methods?

Shope wants this man to be president? This man who shows a complete disregard for the very principles upon which this nation was founded? I would rather vote for a weasel.

Benjamin Allen
Undergraduate