My body is my own
Regarding the Feb. 23 editorial about HB1536, which would allow assisted dying, I'm wondering when my body became the property of your editorial staff or, for that matter, the American Medical Association, or especially the Family Council. None of these entities seem too concerned about my health and well-being, only that I not be allowed under penalty of law to do what I see fit with my physical existence.
The author of this editorial likes to call physician-assisted suicide a "culture of death," which not surprisingly opens the way for another tongue-lashing about abortion. No surprise there.
News flash: This is my body. I feed it, wash it, clothe it, and otherwise maintain its requirements for life. If my body is carrying a fetus, that fetus is still part of my body and whatever I choose to do with that fetus is a decision for the parents only. If my body is agonized due to any terminal ailment and I decide to end my suffering, that too is my decision.
Not yours. Not any number of other Dudley-Do-Rights who don't know me and have zero right to tell me what I can do with My Own Body.
So climb down off your soapbox and get your nose out of my skin.
DENELE CAMPBELL
West Fork
Necessary exceptions
Arkansas' SB149 calls for a fine of up to $100,000 and 10 years in prison for a doctor who performs an abortion any time after conception, with drastically limited exceptions. No criminal charges are provided for the woman. It takes effect upon reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling.
That is consistent with the anti-choice dogma that any abortion is murder and that women who choose abortion are incompetent victims of evil doctors and Nancy Pelosi.
Violation of the current Arkansas statute is a Class A misdemeanor with a fine of up to $1,000 and one to five years in prison. It prohibits abortion, with notable and necessary exceptions, of a "viable fetus defined as one which can live outside the womb; fetus is presumed nonviable prior to end of 25th week of pregnancy."
Taking into consideration the danger of black-market abortions, the rights of women and the many circumstances that may lead someone to choose abortion, I prefer the current law, with one assumption and one major change. I assume it requires proving an aborted fetus was actually able to live outside the womb, rather than strict adherence to the 25th-week rule. Breaking a rule is one thing. Killing a child is another.
I would change the penalties to fit the crime and apply to all who conspire. "Breaking the rule" should remain a misdemeanor. Aborting a "viable fetus" should be somewhere in the manslaughter spectrum of felonies.
HOWELL MEDDERS
Fayetteville
Our country divided
It occurs to me that we now have three political parties: Trump; Republicans; and Democrats.
JUDITH H. BAUM
North Little Rock
Irrational behaviors
It took our country more than 200 years to amass a $10 trillion national debt. Obama and the Democrats doubled it in eight years. Trump is asking for a tiny sliver of 1 percent of what the Obama administration contributed to the debt to strengthen our national security efforts at the southern border while the Dems refuse and feign concern at the cost. This is the same group, along with their co-conspirators in the media, who apparently plan national protests of Trump's decisions before the decisions are made. Such irrational behavior is a real head-scratcher until we consult The Great Fact Checker.
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. ... For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."
KIM GARTMAN
Sheridan
Intestinal fortitude
Didn't the Democrats learn anything from the Republicans? Out of all those Republicans on the stage, we wound up with the worst of the lot, a Vladimir Putin/Kim Jong Un-lover. Too many people just split the votes.
None of the Democrats who so far have announced their candidacy can unseat Donald Trump because the Republicans will hold their noses (or not) and vote for him, and he'll ride merrily along, name-calling, labeling, shutting down government, etc. However, the Democrats need a stronger candidate. Give us a strong candidate and get rid of the Putin/Kim-lover.
We're a much stronger country than I think we are if we can survive four more years of Donald Trump. Who knows what harm he will do in another four years? Social Security? Medicare? Nationalize industry? Do any of the Republicans have the intestinal fortitude to run against him, or is Trump their man to assuage their fascist tendencies?
MILLIE FOREE
Bella Vista
Editorial on 02/28/2019