Making fetal abuse worse

RE: “Fetal Abuse”

06/16/00

I can only agree that the government approach to families in general is of questionable value to the children, to the parents and to society as a whole.

Children who are exposed to drugs and alcohol acquire such disorders as FAS, FAE, ADD, ADHD — removing these children from their homes exponentially fuels their disorders, adding to them RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder), ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) — all initiated by maternal separation.

I am not able to judge a parent who ingests alcohol or drugs, but I do know for a fact what happens to a child who is removed from his or her biological home during infancy or toddlerhood. I am an adoptive parent. My adopted daughter has all the classic symptoms of RAD.

I never thought I would believe this, but I am now against parents giving up their children, and no longer a promoter of adoption. What looks good as a master plan is travesty against a child.

Susan Jackson
Massachusetts

Wake up and smell the buds

RE: “Fetal Abuse”

06/16/00

I think that many of the abusers are rightly stopped from abusing their unborn children with cocaine or amphetemaines, but to include marijuana in this roundup is disastrous. It is the best drug on the planet for nausea and morning sickness. Booze perpetuates disease, driving fatalities, and crime. How does marijuana contribute to crime? It really doesn’t; it keeps folks home watching TV, thinking: “We can rob the bank tomorrow”.

As long as the AMA and the pharmaceutical companies have not found a way to make money from marijuana, it will never be legalized.

People need to wake up and smell the buds, because we are in deep trouble.

Sheryl Jackson

Ladies: you’re oppressed by the freedom to choose!

RE: “Pro Life, No Choice”

06/16/00

The ghost in the machine of this and many other similar discussions is the dreaded A-word. My lefty friends see the issue in as black-and-white terms as those they accuse the prolifers of having: If you’re against abortion, you’re for the oppression of women. I can see nothing liberating about abortion — it is to me just another medical expression of a patriarchal abuse of women’s psyches and bodies that has been appealingly ideologically marketed to “progressives” — one which morally and emotionally assaults women and lets the boys, once again, off the hook, where they like to be.

Kevin Clarke

Support your local farmer

RE: “Wisconsin’s Sacrificial Cows”

06/15/00

I think it’s really important to point out it’s a myth that big farms are more efficient and profitable. Studies out of the University of Iowa have proven this isn’t true. Small farmers aren’t going out of business because of some natural and unstoppable trend toward bigger farms. It’s the result of over 50 years of government policy and some serious lobbying by agribusiness giants that would like nothing better than to control one of our most basic necessities: food.

It’s not just the dairy prices that are killing small farmers in Wisconsin. Like all over the country, it’s urban sprawl coupled with vertical integration in the food industry that allows farmers only the crumbs of profit and knocks them out of farming.

Rebecca S. Kilde

That’s my story!

RE: “Pro Life, No Choice”

06/15/00

I live in a small city in California, and what is described in this article is exactly what happened in my town. Several years ago when I elected to have a tubal ligation after two beautiful children and at the age of 42, I found myself shipped to the city’s second hospital, Valley Hospital, even though my insurance provider at the time had a contract with the Catholic Marian Hospital. Then the Marian Hospital chain bought Valley Community Hospital and closed it down within a year.

Well, for me there was an alternative, but today that is not the case. Santa Maria has one hospital, a Catholic one, and the nearest other hospitals are 40 miles away.

My religion teaches deepest respect for all life and I can’t imagine holding another hostage to my belief system.

Marilyn Mendes
Santa Maria, CA

Milking the system

RE: “Wisconsin’s Sacrificial Cows”

06/13/00

Price supports are a bad idea whose demise has come.

Kate Karon

We get what we deserve

RE: “Pro Life, No Choice”

06/13/00

As a Catholic, I thought the article was excellent. The real problem was and is that our public does not care about providing health care to all citizens. This is the reason for the rise of the Catholic organizations in the first place. These hospitals arose because of the need to care for the very poorest. They are not part of a large conspiracy to jam Catholic values down anyone’s throats. The hospitals are taken over because the people refuse to fund them properly.

As a country we get what we deserve. When we live in an every-man-for-himself society and continually elect politicians with mantras like “No new taxes” and “Government is the problem,” we end up with a huge void in our services to our citizens.

Please keep publishing these articles, but avoid the temptation to frame it as a Catholic issue, i.e., Catholics trying to foist their beliefs on an unsuspecting public. Point out the real truth: We have no national agenda to provide universal health care. For the rest of the people it’s tough luck. Also point out that the very people who are not served keep electing the same legislators. As a result, we embark on another huge defense buildup, but cannot and will not deliver medical care to our citizens.

If the people do not care, do not vote, and just shrug their shoulders, no change will ever occur. We get exactly what we deserve.

Patrick Cleary

Grow up, wimps

RE: “Pro Life, No Choice”

06/13/00

News flash: America still has a private health-care system. If hospitals don’t want to offer services, from abortion to heart surgery, they have that choice. People can go elsewhere, even if it is not easy. Eventually the market will decide. If a hospital does not offer enough services, the business will dry up. They will have to change or leave.

Time for all the wimps to take care of themselves and stop asking the government to baby-sit them.

Mark E. Johnson

Perrier strikes back

RE: “Downstream Effects”

06/13/00

Your recent article on bottled water strayed considerably wide of the mark in its references to the Perrier Group of America.

We are very proud of our record in Florida and of the Governor’s Business Leadership Award we received there in recognition of our contributions to the environment and to the community of Tampa. The sole opponent cited in your article never testified at the recent hearings on our operations at Crystal Springs, took no part in the development of minimum flow levels for the Hillsborough River, and has no scientific expertise to offer. Contrary to the claims in your story, the judge reviewing our current water permit application ruled specifically that our proposal would not pollute the aquifer, increase salinity levels, or cause other adverse environmental impacts. The key issue in that case is how much additional demand for bottled water in the future we can reliably project.

In all of our operations, Perrier goes to great lengths to ensure that our water-gathering activities will not only preserve the resource but also enhance the environment and the community at large. In the lawsuit you cited in Texas, a farmer attempted to blame us when his well ran dry during a drought. The state’s own environmental experts investigated and concluded that Perrier’s operations could not have had any effect on his well. In Wisconsin, meanwhile, we are working with state and local officials to develop a project in which we hope to secure a new source of clean, healthful spring water and at the same time help to restore and improve the fisheries, streams, and wetlands in the area.

At Perrier, protecting America’s water supplies is more than good policy — it’s the foundation of our business.

Meg Andronaco
P.G. Natural Resource Manager – Southeastern U.S.
Perrier Group of America

MoJo Wire responds:

In regards to the Hillsborough River case, we never made any of the claims Ms. Andronaco describes. We simply said that the judge denied Perrier a permit on the basis that pumping could potentially dry up wells in Tampa, which is indeed a fact. Furthermore, we have found no evidence that the judge reviewing Perrier’s permit application ever said the company’s proposal to increase pumping by 600 percent over the next 10 years would be “harmless” to the Tampa area’s water supply.

Regarding the Texas case, we never implied that Perrier’s Ozarka Springs subsidiary was in fact responsible for the depletion of two area families’ wells. We correctly state that the families lost their case because of Texas’ 96-year-old “Rule of Capture” law, which allows a landowner to pump essentially unlimited amounts of groundwater.

Too many people

RE: “Downstream Effects”

06/13/00

However well managed our resources are, each increase in population puts a further strain on the environment. The root cause of environmental overload, as evidenced by aquifer depletion, global warming, and many other symptoms, is the increasing number of human beings on the face of the planet.

A Canadian scientist interviewed the other day said that the real challenge of our time is to create a steady-state economy. Some sources suggest that over the long term, the earth cannot sustain more than one billion people consuming at North American levels.

Just think of the amount of plastic required to contain all that bottled water. It is ironic that the water industry counts on people’s fear of municipal water supplies to sell its product while skirting the fact that their expanding economic activity has an environmental impact of its own.

Lepage-Fisher

Thou shalt not skimp on medical services

RE: “Pro Life, No Choice”

06/12/00

The Catholic Church has no business buying hospitals if it’s not going to provide all the medical services needed by the community. Religious beliefs shouldn’t enter into medical needs. Once again, the Catholics are trying to make decisions for other people. I think it stinks, and the government should step in to make sure the communities’ medical needs are provided for.

Zola Lee

06/12/00

Thank you for this article. We must continue to demand that state and federal legislators protect the rights of the non-Catholic majority who have no choice in the hospital serving their community. No amount of sanctimonious PR from the Catholic health-care machine can change this outrageous reality.

Cynthia Mathews

Build your own dang hospital

RE: “Pro Life, No Choice”

06/12/00

Your article fails to mention a crucial element that makes Catholic hospitals so important: They provide medical care in a non-profit setting where the only alternative would be for the state to provide the service. If a municipality finds it so offensive that the local Catholic hospital does not provide abortion/contraceptive services, the municipality can build its own hospital and incur those costs. If a store does not provide all the items a community needs, it is only a matter of time before another store is erected that caters to those other needs.

Dennis Cariello

Sacred Cows

RE: “Wisconsin’s Sacrificial Cows”

06/12/00

As a Wisconsinite, I feel that dairy farmers here need help. There are people here that are still very much dependant on the dairy industry. And, of course, Wisconsin is the perfect climate for cows.

Tina Nelson