Remembering what women went through before Roe vs. Wade
It’s important for those who lived before Roe vs. Wade to speak up.
I don’t think legislators have a clue about the havoc and harm they may cause for their own families, neighbors, and friends. Unwanted pregnancy doesn’t just happen to the poor and Black teenagers; it comes into many lives.
Your sister, daughter, or granddaughter can get pregnant. Your wife, mother, or grandmother may help them obtain an abortion. While in college, from 1969 to 1973, I went to a Midwestern legislature when it was discussing abortion. One senator was particularly harsh about women seeking an abortion; little did he know his college-age daughter had been assisted in flying to New York City to get an abortion. I doubt he ever knew.
During that time, women flew to NYC or California to get an abortion. Some young women had never been out of the state. Then Roe vs. Wade came in 1973, and abortions were legal, safe and near home.
ELLEN MINTZMYER, PINE LAKE
Equal school funding across the state makes sense
The excellent guest column by a Druid Hills High School parent (Voices, April 28) provided a much-needed firsthand perspective on the problems and inequalities in public education.
The funding formula for public schools is a major reason for the problems.
No parent wants to send their child to an inferior public school system, but many parents have no choice because of their zip codes. Basing funding of public schools on local property taxes is a formula guaranteed to perpetuate inequalities. Instead, every school in every state should be required to provide equal school funding per student across the state – period.
If parents want to send their children to private schools, it should be their right, but no tax money should be used -- period.
These actions seem to be common sense for those of us who desire the best possible lives and opportunities for everyone in our state and country. However, those who perceive every form of taxpayer spending as a zero-sum game will disagree.
J.R. THOMSON, MARIETTA
Grand Old Party seems to have lost its way
Where are the Republicans? I have looked everywhere, and they don’t seem to exist anymore. There is something called The Trump Party, but that surely can’t be real. They say it is made up of some people who belong to all kinds of cults and carry many guns and broke into the U.S. Capitol.
Surely, they are not the kind of people that our parents brought us up to believe in and become leaders of our America. This man Trump was in the real estate business and, from what I have read, took advantage of a lot of people. It has even been said that he did not serve in the military because he had a bone spur; we used to call that a draft dodger. He had to pay off some woman that he was not married to. Oh, my parents would have had a fit had I ever brought home someone like him.
Please help me find the Republican Party that I remember -- the one with morals that helped people and knew how to tell the truth.
CAROL MULDAWER, ATLANTA
