Why are we still blaming victims?
In a diatribe against legislation to allow guns on campus (“Good judgment, not guns, best defense,” Opinion, March 20), Susan Radulovacki took a maladroit, inept turn when she wrote that “sexual assaults often begin as consensual conduct, that alcohol abuse and drug use lower inhibitions and increase likelihood of impaired judgment resulting in danger and harm.” The inference is a young woman is sexually assaulted or otherwise harmed after consenting to certain behavior or misconduct.
Tell that to the family of Eve Marie Carson of Athens, the University of North Carolina student body president and scholar kidnapped and murdered by someone also charged with killing a Duke engineering student. Or the family of Lauren Burk of Cobb County, kidnapped from a campus parking lot at Auburn and shot while trying to escape. Perhaps if we stopped judging a victim’s conduct so critically, there would be more reporting of crimes on campus, the workplace and the home.
Yes, we do teach our daughters as well as our sons to be diligent, observant and careful. We teach them moderation and to make good choices about relationships and indulging. What I won’t do is blame them if they are ever in harm’s way but assure them, instead, I will be there for them at every turn. I continue to end every note to my adult son who is a first responder, “Keep your wits about you.”
C. DIANNE WISNER, ATLANTA
Lack of insurance has fatal results
A recent letter claimed the medical outcomes were no better for people with expanded Medicaid (“Medicaid doesn’t help outcomes,” Readers write, March 24). Yet numerous studies have shown expansion of Medicaid lowers the risk of death. In 2012, a study from the New England Journal of Medicine compared three states — New York, Arizona and Maine — that had expanded Medicaid with bordering states. The states that expanded Medicaid had a relative reduction in mortality of 6.1 percent.
In Massachusetts, an Annals of Internal Medicine study found that for every 830 additional people who received insurance, one death was prevented. According to another study, 45,000 Americans die each year because they have no medical coverage. While it is true there are many problems with Medicaid including adequate physician access, it’s also undeniable that lack of medical insurance can be lethal.
JAY HOCHMAN, M.D., SANDY SPRINGS
Confederate image shouldn’t go on tags
The lawsuit filed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans ("Battle flag licenses case may affect Ga.," News, March 24) to allow the Confederate battle flag emblem to be displayed on Texas license tags shows just how far we still have to go to educate ourselves about the consequences of such inflammatory symbols. That this is already allowed in Georgia is a testament to how clueless those in power are.
The heritage being celebrated is not about brave soldiers fighting for states’ rights. It is about the right to own slaves who were in most cases treated worse than stray dogs on the street. If this is a heritage we are comfortable with, then we have a long ways to go to educate the people who would continue to display such emblems of past wrongs and current bigotry. This is not a matter of free speech any more that yelling fire in a crowded theater is.
MICHAEL DE GIVE, DECATUR
