Stopping abortion means also helping moms

Regarding the Dec. 1 letter from Jeannie Wallace French on abortion ("The Answer Is To Eliminate the Crisis, Not the Baby"): How lucky the mother who found you! Your story is a beautiful affirmation of life.

Your wonderful actions point out a major question for pro-life circles, however: How do we find both abortion alternatives and support the many thousands more mothers who don't know people like you? Anti-abortion legislation alone? No. Simply making abortion illegal won't turn this around. Please consider the mother of that unborn child.

We need to provide alternatives that both support the innocent baby's life and the mother's life. Making abortion illegal without concurrent, major support for mom is counterproductive. Protesting abortion without considering the mother's emotional and physical condition is likewise counterproductive.

The Republicans addressed legislation; the Democrats addressed support. Neither works alone; both must come together, keeping mom and her condition in mind.

As demonstrated by Ms. French's wonderful, life-affirming actions, we cannot protest abortion simply by insisting on legislation making abortion illegal. We must also work toward giving mom a good, supportive alternative that affirms and supports the life inside her, while also supporting mom's life.

Count me in -- and thanks!

LEON DIXON
Marshall

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She'll be rewarded

God bless you, Jeannie Wallace French ("The Answer Is To Eliminate the Crisis, Not the Baby," Dec. 1 letters) for speaking out on behalf of all our dear children who never have the opportunity to breathe one breath of this world, in which they were meant to be. Your rewards will be great in heaven.

AUDREY LEMME
Penn Hills

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Triple the tax

Raspberries to the irresponsible politicians for lowering the drink tax 30 percent from 10 percent to 7 percent ("County Cuts Drink Tax to 7 Percent," Dec. 3). Given the pathetic state of too many people staggering out of bars at closing time, the drink tax should have been tripled!

The 10 percent drink tax did precious little to deter excessive drinking despite bar owners' tears in their watered-down beers that they wouldn't be able to stay in business.

The money raised by tripling the drink tax could be used to pay for addressing alcohol-related ills in our society.

RAYMOND F. HALUSKA
Latrobe

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Reconsider tactics

In a recent editorial "Good Man Gone" (Nov. 27), you properly lament the loss of FBI Special Agent Samuel Hicks in a drug raid. Complete details will likely not be known until the trial, if then, so we are left to speculate as to what really occurred that morning other than a forced entry under the cover of early morning darkness, one shot fired and a 911 call.

As you note, we do have the right to defend our homes and lives with deadly force when under attack, but then you go on to argue against using that right in the heat of the moment when action is required to stay alive. If this were a home invasion by criminals, any delay in firing could have resulted in Christina Korbe's family's deaths.

What really should be the focus are the tactics used in these raids. One account I read reported that a "law enforcement source" stated that early morning raids are conducted to catch suspects off-guard and even groggy. How can the prosecutors expect rational split-second thought and action when police efforts are designed to produce the opposite? Wouldn't any reasonable person react as she did-- fire in self-defense and then call 911?

Flushed drugs have no value, so let them flush them. The drugs are "off the street" and isn't that really the goal? How long will any dealer stay in business if he or she has to continue to flush the product and profits away? How many officers and innocent civilians will we lose in misdirected raids?

Without details, it's not possible to say for certain, but it seems that Ms. Korbe has a case for self-defense. In some states, a night-time entry alone is justification for using deadly force.

RAY HORVATH
McCandless

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Wrong direction

I disagree with points made by Allegheny County Councilman Bob Macey in his Nov. 28 letter regarding the Mon-Fayette Expressway/Southern Beltway ("Council Makes the Right Move With Support for Mon-Fayette Expressway").

First, the Mon-Fayette will aggravate congestion into Pittsburgh because it is designed to dump more traffic onto the Parkway East short of Downtown.

Second, while it is true that we must invest more in our infrastructure, we don't have the funds to maintain the bridges and roads we already have.

Finally, the modern economy depends far more on other factors than highway access.

If greater economic development is our goal, we should invest substantially more in education and training at all levels, electronic communication and innovations such as magnetic-levitation trains. We must invest in bringing all people into a productive relationship to our community and preserving the natural environment that defines our region.

RAY REAVES
Squirrel Hill

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Spirituality void

Regarding the article "Students Lie, Cheat, Steal, But Think They Are Good" (Dec. 1): Of course they do! They are victims of a secular culture that is devoid of moral authority telling them what they should or should not do. With no accountability to a "higher power" for their actions, they do as they darn well please. And they "think they are good." No God to judge or reprove, hence, no guilty conscience.

What is the solution to this ethical dilemma? We should teach our children to believe in and revere the Creator God worshipped by the vast majority of our diverse population -- Christian, Jew and Muslim.

JOE HOPKINS
New Wilmington

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Focus on lung cancer

In October we recognized Breast Cancer Awareness Month. When I drove across the Fort Pitt Bridge, my young children squealed with excitement as they saw the fountain at the Point bellowing up pink water.

How many of you were aware, however, that November was National Lung Cancer Awareness Month?

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States for both men and women. It kills more people annually than breast, colon, melanoma and kidney cancer combined, yet it gets significantly fewer research dollars per death. The research money for breast cancer on a per death basis is more than 20 times greater than for lung cancer.

I'm the daughter of and patient advocate for a loved one with lung cancer and only learned that November was Lung Cancer Awareness Month by watching NBC's Today show. The story was about a young father who had advanced lung cancer, and one of the first things mentioned about him was that he had never smoked.

People need to be made aware of how prevalent lung cancer is, and more money needs to go into lung cancer research.

MARY MALLON RAYL
Mt. Lebanon

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The regular guy once again gets the blame

Who gets the blame for tipping the world into recession and putting us poor working folks on the hook for more than $7 trillion (so far) to "rescue" the financial sector?

It might appear obvious to you and I that the culprits are Wall Street swindlers who pocketed billions passing around mountains of bad paper and their enablers in government. But no, says columnist George F. Will ("Up-in-the-Air Economy," Dec. 1); it is those of us who actually do something useful for a living, like build cars, who have brought the economy to its knees.

We're too greedy, you see, driving up wages through our unions and elected representatives. Why, even the Great Depression was our fault because we foolishly elected FDR, who attempted to alleviate mass immiserization by supporting collective bargaining instead of letting the corporations grind us further into the ground.

Mr. Will's hogwash may be laughable, but it reflects an ominous justification for letting the U.S. auto industry break the auto workers union through bankruptcy.

I remember the United Steelworkers getting the blame for the collapse of the mills here. The UAW has renegotiated its contracts to bring the labor cost of making cars to nearly a par with nonunion manufacturers. If we let our auto industry go down, millions of working people and retirees are going to lose their pensions and health insurance.

How is it we can support trillions in bailouts to bankers and hedge-fund billionaires, and yet oppose keeping the doors open at the auto plants?

ROBERT STEFFES
Aliquippa

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