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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 3, 2009

Restrictions have Effects

In her editorial, "Can Common Ground Prevail?" (Dec. 27), Christina Page states restrictions have little effect on abortion rates and that fighting poverty to reduce demand for abortion is the way to go. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, abortion rates have gone down quite a bit, from 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 1980 to 19.4 in 2005, the greatest decline being among teenagers. Did restrictions have little to do with this? When Minnesota passed a parental notification law, within four years the abortion rate for minors fell 27 percent, and the pregnancy rate fell 21 percent (American Journal of Public Health, May 1991).

What Ms. Page calls common ground sounds more like shifting ground: The expectation that pro-lifers should abandon their legislative goals (which pro-choicers, of course, will not) and instead work on social programs. Pro-lifers have been doing this all along through Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army, the Nurturing Network, etc., and President Bush has doubled federal financing for community health centers, creating or expanding 1,297 clinics in underserved areas.

So where is the reciprocity from the other side? Are Ms. Page, President-elect Barack Obama, et.al., willing to consider the merits of parental consent, oversight of abortion clinics, and other measures considered standard for any other medical procedure or facility? About a decade ago when I lived in Missouri, pro-choice groups opposed the passage of a state law requiring inspection of abortion clinics and malpractice insurance for their doctors. During that time I typed a surgery report on a woman who had a hysterectomy and bowel resection after a botched Planned Parenthood abortion. One shudders to think of a minor going to the same clinic without her parents' knowledge.

Pro-life groups need to safeguard the states' power to regulate the abortion industry, a power that will be wiped out if the Freedom of Choice Act becomes law. To sacrifice that in favor of the "common ground" approach when birth control pills are $9 at Wal-Mart is, indeed, a sellout.

Jane Kaly

Brooksville

Consumers Also To Blame For Auto Makers' Plight

"Foolish follies of the auto Industry" talk and blame. True, the auto industry is not blameless, but we - the consumers along with government politicians, unions - are all bigger contributors to the stated situation. Why just blame President Bush? The Congress is equally to blame. Let's face the facts. The auto companies did not force the gas guzzlers on the American public. Rather, the American public forced them to manufacture what they wanted to have, which were the SUVs and other big glitzy gas guzzlers. The companies also made gas-efficient cars. If the more fuel efficient cars had been in demand instead of the guzzlers, that is what the companies with profits in mind would have made instead of the guzzlers. A company has to make a reasonable profit margin on a product or not produce it. The foreign-name auto makers also have not been stuck with samelabor and benefitcosts. The foreign car profits do not stay in United States. At the end, we are penny wise and pound foolish.

The high-mileage new generation cars, like the less fuel consuming vehicles made, would not have sold. First, they were not big and glitzy enough cars for those with money and too costly for the majority of us. The manufacturing cost of a low-demand, low-production sophisticated product remains high. Second, sufficient fuel replenishing locations would be profitably unfeasible until a large number of these vehicles are in use.

With regard to the public transit suggestion. It sounds good but its use cannot be forced. Unlike urban populations before and shortly after World War II-era when mass transit was profitable, people are now spread out. Transit cannot be set up to efficiently coverspread out areas. People will only walk limited distances and accept limited inconvenience, including waiting time and other unknowns.

Those are the views of someone who used World War II-era transit and while not working for either of the auto companies did work in engineering for two other large international companies.

Walter H. Neumann

Spring Hill

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