Unborn babies suffer U.S. double standard
Unborn babies suffer U.S. double standard
EDITOR:
I am a new grandfather. Recently, my daughter gave birth to a 1 pound 7 ounce baby, born three and one-half months premature. While she was in labor, there was a substantial risk that the child would not survive. He not only survived the delivery, but also is progressing well and we are looking forward to the day when his parents will be able to take him home. We are thankful for the perseverance and expertise of the many doctors and nurses committed to serve these tiny ones.
As I walked through the neo-natal unit at St. E's, I saw several babies, all with the same "preemie" status. In years to come, these children may be our next teachers, politicians, ministers, scientists or technological masterminds. They are children with a hope and a future.
Unfortunately, throughout the United States, countless millions of children have been denied this future. They have been called fetuses, bodily (embryonic) tissue, or waste products. Our Supreme Court has given women the right to destroy the lives of those little boys and girls dwelling within their wombs. These "mothers-to-be," consciously or not, consider their children to be property -- much like the slaves of the 1800s, disposing of them as they choose, denying the children any rights.
Given this thought, I then realized that my grandson, with his perfectly formed fingernails and toenails, legs and arms, as well as those loving eyes that occasionally peek out at us, could easily have become part of the local garbage dump, having fallen victim of the "pro-choice" agenda like many of his counterparts.
It is important to also note that The Vindicator often prints articles about mothers of newborns going to prison for murder because they have smothered, drowned or otherwise taken the life of that newborn child.
We live in a nation that is living with a double standard. How can a child be a murder victim a few hours after birth but not a few hours before birth? It is time that we give proper value to all life whether already born or soon-to-be.
Every child, the unborn included, should have access to the same rights that all Americans value so preciously -- the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
DAVE HELTON
Struthers
With Idora ballroom fire, past goes up in smoke
EDITOR:
Another part of my past is gone. It seems as though no one has time for the past or for the things that belonged to a gentler time. Such iis the case with Idora Park.
I remember many school picnics, many long summer days spent roaming the midway and riding the Wildcat incessantly, taking a break only long enough to grab a funnel cake or take a cooling train ride around the parking area. The ballroom fire was a painful reminder that we no longer have this beautiful small park. It is the final blow.
My grandmother and I would drive from Pennsylvania just to spend the day at Idora. We did this until she was 79 years old, and she still rode the Wildcat as many times as I did.
Nobody cared about the park after the fire and it was left to die an undignified and unnecessary death. Everyone nowadays wants bigger, faster, and more high-tech rides and attractions. How soon before the same fate befalls Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh?
I tell my teen-age son about going to Idora, but he just isn't interested in a park that had no steel coasters that go 80 mph. These small traditional parks are part of our past, and should continue to be part of the future. It's a shame that they are being left to rot away silently.
CHERYL PASKEVICH
Aliquippa, Pa.