Readers react to women’s health, Obamacare and mental health in Kansas
Women’s health
The 2016 funding proposal from a House appropriations subcommittee is set to ax Title X, the nation’s program for funding family planning.
For 45 years, Title X has worked to prevent unintended pregnancies and funded additional preventative health care, such as lifesaving cancer screenings and testing for sexually transmitted infections.
Gutting the Title X Family Planning Program would not only leave more than 4 million people without access to health care, but the results would cost taxpayers more in the long run. According to the Guttmacher Institute, there is about a $7 savings per every dollar invested into publicly funded family planning.
Guttmacher also reports that Title X has played an essential role in reducing unintended pregnancies since 1970. Without the Title X program, strides in decreasing teen pregnancy rates could be reversed.
The proposed cuts to Title X don’t align with the majority opinion of Americans.
Research in 2012 by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy showed 81 percent of Americans supported federally funded efforts to help low-income individuals access contraception and preventative health care.
Alexis Simmons
Wichita
Headed to Canada?
I’ve heard people say that with the Supreme Court rulings last month on Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, and gay marriage, they are considering moving to Canada.
I guess it should be pointed out that Canada legalized gay marriage a decade ago and has had single-payer, universal health care since 1961.
The bottom line — if you’re not gay, or if you are gay but don’t plan to get married, here is a comprehensive list of all the ways your life has been changed by these Supreme Court rulings:
Absolultely none.
Duane Daugherty
Roeland Park
GOP adversaries
In response to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s appeal to avoid funding public education, how do politicians evade contempt of court?
How many times does the court system need to tell politicians to do it right before they get the message? This matter of not funding our public school system must stop.
And for the past 35 years, the GOP has been waging war on local, state and national economies; the gay and lesbian community; Medicare and Medicaid; women; Social Security; good wages; the right to vote; public education funding; the U.S. Postal Service; the environment; family farms; cleaner energy; and students, by way of the reckless college loan program.
Richard Heckler
Lawrence
Kansas mental health
As a retired employee at the Osawtomie State Hospital who spent 311/2 years there, I was interested in your July 29 article, “Kansas mental care is faulted.”
Twenty years ago, we lacked bed space and made the patients sleep on the floor on mattresses when there were no more beds.
Most caregivers didn’t want to do it. We were ordered.
I don’t know what they do now. It seems like things haven’t changed too much, though.
It seems as if history keeps repeating itself when I read about the case of Brandon Brown, who was released after a week of treatment.
It harkens back to when I worked on the same ward as the patient Bradley Boan, who went on a temporary visit and shot up the University of Kansas Medical Center emergency room. He later threatened to come back to Osawatomie and kill the doctor and staff.
That brings up another point. The family said the patient was released too soon and was not on enough medicine.
The doctors should listen to the family. And keeping a mental patient one week doesn’t give time for any treatment.
Larry White
Osawatomie, Kan.
Planned Parenthood
A recently released video shows extremists posing as health care workers and badgering a longtime physician for hours, trying to get her to discuss unethical and criminal activity that she doesn’t engage in or know anything about (7-26, A1, “Foes of abortion change tactics”). There is nothing in these videos that suggests any violation of law.
These tapes are heavily doctored, and the full tapes show that charges that Planned Parenthood profits from women’s decisions to donate fetal tissue are false and outrageous.
Planned Parenthood has provided high-quality care to our community for more than 100 years, and nothing is more important than the health and safety of its patients.
The real agenda here is becoming clearer every day: These false claims are being used to advance a political agenda to ban abortion and defund Planned Parenthood, which would cut off 2.7 million people from its birth control services, cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infections testing and treatment, and other preventive health care services.
Karly Schieder
Liberty
Confederate flag
The Confederate battle flag has a place in Missouri history.
Gov. Claiborne Fox Jackson, in a meeting at Neosho with the legislature, signed a bill on Oct. 31, 1861, whereby Missouri became the 12th state of the Confederate States of America. Missouri is represented as the 12th star on the Confederate battle flag.
More than 40,000 Missourians fought for the Confederacy. There is a Confederate Cemetery at Higginsville, where the battle flag flies, and flags are placed on graves on Confederate Day.
The 135 acres once was the site of a Confederate soldiers home, and it is now a Confederate Memorial State Historic Site.
The state legislators are talking about removing the Confederate battle flag from all public places. The late U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton fought such moves when it came to the cemetery.
I say, in regard to this cemetery and the battle flag, do not mess with them.
Charles G. Coy
Former owner,
Publisher
The Lexington Daily
Advertiser-News
Washington, Mo.
Safety at games
I was a spectator at a Cardinals-Royals game when a more than 100-mph line drive foul ball hit by then Cardinal player David Eckstein landed in my mouth. It was 90 days after the new Busch Stadium opened.
After reading your July 19 article, “To screen or not to screen? Debate on added netting at ballparks is on,” about extended screens at Major League Baseball stadiums, I thought you failed to mention that new or renovated ballparks feature seats closer to the field. Additionally, players are stronger and fans are more distracted by the loud music and ballpark entertainment.
Each team is responsible for spectator safety. Robert Gorman, co-author of 2008’s “Death at the Ballpark,” said, “Baseball has its head in the sand — if they learn there’s a problem, they’ll have to address it.”
Signs at baseball stadiums note, “Beware of bats and balls leaving the field,” but many spectators aren’t aware their risks of being seriously or fatally injured at games have exponentially increased with the seats being closer to the field, with the increased strength of the players and with all the entertainment distractions.
Having experienced multiple long-term injuries, numerous doctor visits and multitudes of life interruptions, I support those who want to extend the screens.
Lori Eveler
Lenexa
Kindness over hate
Since I am a gardener, I know
That weeds steal from flowers that grow.
To make the weeds stop,
Don’t pull from the top!
Dig deep to the roots down below.
Dig deep to the roots down below,
Where fear and gross ignorance grow.
And after the rain,
There’s slightly less pain
In searching for what I don’t know.
In searching for what I don’t know,
I may have to let my fears show.
But this is the way
To bring on the day
When flowers of justice can grow.
When flowers of justice can grow,
Then peace, love and joy also show
That there is a way
Where hate has no say,
And kindness is all that we know.
Marian McCaa Thomas
Leawood
This story was originally published July 30, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Readers react to women’s health, Obamacare and mental health in Kansas."