Witness to peaceful pro-life demonstration
Re: “Abortion opponents need to keep their distance,” June 8 letter to the editor
I’m both surprised and sorry to hear that women have experienced “disgusting signs yelling and parading around calling them baby killers.”
Having recently and personally seen pro-life men, women, and young people respectfully gathered within legal limits outside Planned Parenthood offices in both Littleton and Denver, I saw these things:
• groups and individuals praying both silently and out loud for both mothers and their unborn babies;
• people offering information on agencies that offer free support for moms and babies in need, including pregnancy tests, baby supplies, food, and physical, emotional, and mental health support.
• and, yes, respectful people carrying signs that said: “We Pray Because We Love You Both,” “Equal Rights for Unborn Women,” “Love Them Both!”, “Everyone Deserves a Birth Day” and “You Don’t Have to Do This Today.”
The only noise occurred when drivers responded to one person’s sign that said, “Honk if you’re a former fetus.” If you’re reading this, you were one, too. Please help a mom in need if you can.
Mary M. Bartek, Centennial
Access to family planning empowers women, nations
Re: “The most important thing happening in the world today,” June 7 commentary
Although refreshing to read about “The most important thing happening in the world today,” in terms of family planning, maternal care and improving infant mortality after the fact, what would add to this celebration is the improved access to contraception for women in poor third world countries.
In Melinda Gates’ book, “The Moment of Lift,” she spoke about starting a global initiative to save infant lives in poverty-stricken countries like Malawi, Niger, Kenya and others. Yet, when she visited these countries and interviewed the women, she realized the emphasis needed to be on family planning.
Melinda writes, “I began to hear and see the need for contraceptives … I met more mothers who were desperate not to get pregnant because they could not afford to feed and take care of the kids they already had.”
Millions of women that wanted to use contraceptives didn’t have access or could not get them due to supply shortages. A long-running study in Bangladesh showed that women who were given contraceptives were healthier, their children better nourished and their families could generate more wealth.
“No country in the last fifty years has emerged from poverty without expanding access to contraceptives.” Gates wrote, “It took us years to learn that contraceptives are the greatest life-saving, poverty-ending, woman-empowering innovation ever created.”
The most important thing that can happen in the world is to empower women with the ways and means to plan their families. The most important thing happening in the world would be making contraceptives the highest priority.
Katherine Webster, Littleton
Give youth the means to escape the violence
Re: “Jor’Dell was killed over a pellet gun, but youth gun violence is to blame,” June 18 commentary
In the Perspective Section, Denver Post opinion pages editor Megan Shrader detailed the tragic death of 14-year-old Jor’Dell Richardson. She described factors that she believes contribute to youth gun violence. She also supplied some recommendations. Schrader suggests that Jor’Dell’s dying words should haunt us,” They made me do it. I don’t know who they are but they made me do it.”
So many teen tragedies have peer pressure as their genesis since peer acceptance is often paramount for teens. Empowerment skills can enable people of all ages to walk away from situations where they shouldn’t be involved.
Let’s work to provide tools to embolden our teens, who often do know wrong from right, to have the courage of their convictions. However, if the “they” to which Jor’Dell referred were threatening him with a gun, that’s quite a different story, with the opening line: There are too many guns in America today.
It is my view that the video game culture has normalized the use of guns.
Terri Tilliss, Parker
Who’s to blame? Where’s the accountability for youth violence? I am suggesting that The Denver Post investigate the black market sales of illegal drugs, which is a virus infecting the entire metro area. Investigate those who consume and purchase illegal drugs because they fuel the fire. Then, secondly, find a way to question every shooter and ask them “why”? Ask: “What is going on? Who do you answer to?”
Maybe our local law enforcement already has that information, but it’s secret. Really, why the silence about the bottom line? Teens are not making millions nor spending thousands in this illegal drug business; they are the pawns. Power brokers and mobsters maneuver from the top.
Rita Rosenberger, Denver
Tainted? More like fatally poisoned
Re: “The taint of Trump lingered with Jenna Ellis and Kyle Rittenhouse,” June 18 commentary
A genuine Republican once said, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Columnist Krista Kafer, in her youth, has yet to accept that the active and passive Trump loyalists sporting the Republican and conservative badges, are neither.
I’m an ex-Republican forced to be unaffiliated. There are no classical Republicans left to vote for these days. The majority of voters know that in Colorado. You are more likely to find an ivory-billed woodpecker.
We’re still tearing down false monuments to Confederate leaders and I expect the same for Trump.
Craig Keefner, Westminster
Advice for our future leaders on climate plans
Re: “Vice President says students’ climate plan is a model for others,” June 17 news story
I’m not in Vice President Kamala Harris’ league, but as I salute her advice to Colorado’s young climate activists, I have additional advice.
Over 50 years ago, almost every time I came over the hills south of Denver on Interstate 25 from Castle Rock, there was a thick brown haze over the beautiful city of Denver. Because Colorado has done a great job of addressing air pollution, we rarely have the brown haze anymore. Same with Colorado Springs. Colorado has taken a deliberate, intentional and gradual approach to cleaning our environment.
We’ve done a better job than California. Our fellow citizens on the West Coast have taken a more crisis-driven approach that has left them short of energy options now and then. Requiring all electric cars by 2035 is an example of their overreaction. Colorado might consider moving to hybrid vehicles rather than following the Golden State’s lead. Electric cars work well for many metro area drivers, but we shouldn’t outlaw fossil fuels.
Young climate activists, as you take your places in leadership throughout our state, remember to go slowly and consider the synergistic and unintended consequences of your decisions.
Mark Hyatt, Colorado Springs
Reporter’s question was about safety in sports
I watched press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre twist a reporter’s question about transgender children in sports during a press briefing on June 13. He asked if she considered it dangerous. Karine then proceeded to berate him, stating that he was wrong to say that transgenders are dangerous. He was only asking a question that every logical person is asking, is it dangerous for females if a person born a male is competing against them?
I would not like to see a young girl playing softball in high school and trying to block the plate as a catcher when a “female, born a male” came crashing into her. Or have a female basketball player setting a pick and the transgender player plowing into her. That would not be safe.
This is not an attack on transgender people. I don’t care at all if a person wants to become something other than what they were born as, as long as they are aware of what they are doing and not being swayed by anyone or the media. It’s their business.
That being said, in sports, there will always be someone bigger, stronger and faster, but give girls a fighting chance — girls against girls, boys against boys — or maybe we should just make all sports coed.
Gregg Pearson, Bailey
“Narrow path between” Constitution and the extreme
Re: “Nothing wrong to dream of a world without guns,” June 18 letter to the editor
As a retired staff sergeant, I wish to correct some of the statements made by one of the letter writers in Sunday’s paper.
The rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and the regulations proposed by our legislators, do not apply to firearms. Firearms are inanimate objects. Those rights and regulations apply to human beings. That is to say, we, the citizens of the United States. Our legislators recognize that fact.
The legislature walks a narrow path between the Constitution and the social extremists who are so vocal in expressing their fears. The same fearful extremists then seek to intimidate their fellow citizens by displaying their “big guns” while at public gatherings. In effect, they demand that weapons be indiscriminately put into the hands of people who are not mentally or emotionally qualified to possess them responsibly.
The comments about military training seem a bit off base when you consider training is demanded by the militia mentioned in the 2nd Amendment. The government does not send young people to some sort of summer camp to learn to kill people. Service members are taught discipline and respect for the law of land warfare. They are taught the many skills needed to perform their jobs and survive during a war. They are not rewarded for killing people; that is a disgusting falsehood.
The comment that a veteran under 21 cannot own a firearm in Colorado is true. I believe the law should be amended so that any honorably discharged veteran may purchase a firearm as if they are 21.
Greg Fedorchuk, Lakewood
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