Abortion option should be shared
Abortion option should be shared
Regarding Ms. Ferraro’s letter of March 23, I say fellow Hawaii residents – please ask your legislators to pass SB501, which requires Hawaii Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) to provide information regarding an abortion option. The great state of California passed a similar measure in 2015.
Whatever our beliefs, false information pollutes our democracy. The US House of Representatives in its 2006 investigation found that 87 percent of CPCs surveyed provided false or misleading information about the health effects of abortion, such as abortions causing breast cancer. Similarly, “(CPC) web sites provide inaccurate and misleading information … (which) might be particularly harmful to adolescents.” (Katelyn Bryant-Comstock et. al., Deptartment of OBGYN, University of North Carolina (February 2016).
Women (and men) should be concerned about Concerned Women for America (CWA), of which Ms. Ferraro is a state director. Which America does CWA represent? The 41 states including the moral powerhouses of California and Hawaii that initially ratified the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), or the balance of nine?
CWA opposes equal rights for women by famously opposing the ERA. We are well beyond the Medieval vision of keeping women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
To continue to be competitive, compassionate and powerful as a nation, we need to tap into the talents of girls and women and increase the number of women in positions of power and leadership.
Yet, organizations like CWA hearken to the days of yore.
Sohrab F. Dorabji
Keauhou
Give teachers a break
I feel sorry for teachers of geography, especially this month. A group claiming itself to be a national association of colleges and universities made pronouncements that, in my opinion, defy logic.
For example, the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament’s East region included a game in which the University of New Mexico travelled to Tulsa, Oklahoma. On that very same day, the West region’s venue of Buffalo, New York, hosted Princeton (a university domiciled in New Jersey). One might imagine that those Ivy League intellectuals would have suspected something.
Making matters worse, the Midwest region’s Rhode Islanders (apparently from some island in the plains or on the prairie) headed for that other famous Midwest hot spot Sacramento, California. Finally, let’s not forget the Southern region where the University of Minnesota travelled a little more than a stone’s throw to its sister state Wisconsin, where thanks to the NCAA, Milwaukee is destined to become the new Heart of Dixie.
My advice is that the NCAA rename the four regions something like “red, blue, green, and orange” or “A,B,C,D.”
Until then, I feel sorry for teachers of geography this month. It is truly March madness.
James Donovan
Waikoloa
Fired up at protests
I am sick and tired of the “not in my backyard” protests against everything from the TMT to the PTA. I experienced instant anger this morning upon reading on the front page of WHT, “PTA protesters fired up” after just spending most of yesterday with top personnel from PTA supporting yet another educational event for our keiki. The Army here has consistently supported the education of our young people for as long has I have been an educator here in the islands (25 years). The sacrifices that our military personnel make are heartbreaking and I, for one, don’t mind doing my part no matter the inconvenience. No amount of Hawaiian chants can make up for their losses; instead, we all should be supporting their extraordinary efforts to keep us safe.
Paula Kamiya
Waikoloa