Outraged over assault weapons
Dear Editor:
Newspaper headline: “Latest gun massacre in America leaves 20 children dead.”

 

Twenty children.
Murdered at school.
Twenty children.
Assassinated in their classrooms.
Twenty children.
Dead.

Newspaper headline: “President Obama went to Newtown for an interfaith vigil, traveling for the fourth time to an American city after a mass shooting.”

 

Weep over it.
Rage against it.
Do something about it.
Now.
Postscript:

What to do: Email President Obama and senators Udall and Bennet registering your outrage. Demand the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban. Demand mandatory background checks and a waiting period before buying a gun; and support strict regulation on the sale of multibullet clips for automatic weapons. Spread the word. If even 2 million citizens email our representatives, they will listen; they want to get re-elected, if nothing else.

If you are a hunter, a member of the NRA or not, this action is most important and credible. Hunters don’t use these deadly automatic weapons, and nobody else needs these guns unless they are planning to murder dozens of people in a few minutes. Please express your opposition to these weapons, which have no place in hunting.

– Sincerely, Mary Benson, Durango

Giving a voice to the voiceless
(Editors note: The following is the latest in an ongoing series of letters written by Animas High School students as part of their “Morality and Politics of Justice” class.)
 To the editor,
The Supreme Court made a glaring error in 1973 with Roe v. Wade by prioritizing human choice over a human’s right to life. The time has come to re-evaluate that decision.

As a person who was adopted, I find the utmost importance in making abortion illegal. However, there are situations such as rape, incest or life threatening situations where abortion should be legal. In these cases, women did not have the choice to be in the situation which caused them to become pregnant. Alternatively, other women choose to have protected or unprotected sex, which can potentially result in an unplanned pregnancy. This is no justification for aborting a child and abandoning the responsibilities for one’s actions. Therefore, except in cases previously listed, aborting a child should not be an option. Legalizing abortion removed the value of life of even the smallest individual and the liberty and equality of the child.

In 1787, the founders of our country made a pledge to protect our nation and its citizens in the Constitution’s preamble. In order to achieve the aims of the preamble, our government must ensure that everyone has an equal chance to life. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court abandoned the building blocks of our government by willingly letting other humans take away a life of a child who cannot speak for him/herself.

Although many pro-choice advocates argue that illegalizing abortion removes the right of a woman’s freedom of choice, they don’t seem to acknowledge that by allowing for abortions, women are taking away freedom of choice of the baby and abusing his/her right of liberty by inflicting harm. John Stuart Mills, an 18th century philosopher, believed that defending individual liberty was the most important function of social institutions and that the only time liberty should be removed is when one is forcing harm upon another. In Mills’ “Harm Principle,” he states that the government may not interfere on an individual’s actions until the individual is causing harm to others. In the case of abortion, women are not only inflicting harm on the young life inside them, but they are also eliminating the child’s right to liberty. Thus, it is imperative for the government to interfere in cases of abortion.

In addition to liberty, aborting a baby eradicates its most basic equal right: life. John Rawls, a 20th century philosopher, developed a theory called the “Veil of Ignorance,” which Louis Katzner summarizes as preventing “the tailoring of principles to individual circumstances by concealing knowledge of oneself, one’s society, and the relationship between the two ... .” Abortion disregards this idea of putting yourself aside from the situation to create equality for all, and instead focuses on allowing the woman to decide what is best for only her. Abortion does not value the life of an unborn child and is treating the child as though he/she is not as important as the woman.

Illegalizing abortion (except in cases of rape, incest or life-threatening situations) creates more liberty and equality for a greater amount of people.

 

Though many argue that this is unfair because women don’t get a say in the matter, illegalizing abortion does not truly strip women from freedom of choice. They always have the choice of giving the child up for adoption. Through adoption, the woman is no longer obligated to care for the child, families who want or are unable to have a family are able to have one and the child is given an equal right to life. As a person who has been adopted, every day I am grateful for my mother giving me the chance to live. Through her selflessness and courage, though being a single woman with a low-paying job, I was given the greatest gift anyone could give or ask for: life.

– Jessie Dvirnak, Animas High School

Congress needs to get on the bus
To the editor,
Imagine a fact-checking trip taken on a tour bus with Democrats and Republican leaders. On this tour, the Democrats won the toss-up to have a Democrat steer the bus to a decided Democratic destination. This left some of the wealthy Republicans bitter over losing the toss-up. A few among the wealthy decided they did not want to pay the tax that goes up yearly for such a fact-finding trip. Out of this protest, they held back their fair share of the expense for the trip; this behavior put the trip on hold and stalled the plans for the rest of the passengers.

This is now happening with the extremists in Congress; they are preventing the country from moving forward because of their narrow understanding of why the wealthy should pay their fair share in taxes and their bitterness toward the opposite party being in power.

Let’s return back to the stalled bus scenario: Eventually the bus left the protesters behind and the fact-finding trip resumed as planned. Like the bus that left the stubborn passengers behind, the Senate and that logical part of Congress might have to leave the extremists in Congress behind.

 

With political courage from both sides, this could be done if House Speaker John Boehner teamed up with Minority leader Nancy Pelosi to move America forward.

– Alfred Waddell, West Dennis, Mass.