Published: May 06, 2008 10:14 am         

Letters for May 5, 2008

PP removing humanity

Reading all the recent letters concerning Planned Parenthood simply reminds me of what its main advocacy seems to be: abortion. Only because other information it provides wouldn’t really make sense minus that.

Putting it another way, those times I’ve given PP any real thought, there’s always been that doubt about it truly having the humanity it advertises. But I wanted to let it speak for itself by looking through its site. Concerning reproductive rights, anyway, what I’ve read impresses me as having a singularly focused, perhaps even fanatical, determination to dehumanize the unborn. From a 1985 white paper to a 2008 alert on the Vermont Legislature’s H-625, that’s what kept striking me. The sheer amount of intellect expended on reducing a baby to an inanimate lump is astonishing.

To use neutral terms as embryo and pregnant, you could just as well be talking about a slug. And why use embryo in one circumstance and baby in another? Is life now defined on the basis of being wanted or an inconvenience? Or simply being outside the womb? I know enough about the human characteristic to say that when something gets institutionally dehumanized (as Roe vs. Wade allows, as it was argued on the question of personhood), it usually winds up being exploited (as we did with the slaves), or exterminated (as the Nazis tried with the Jews).

It’s precisely the concept of personhood that seems to separate the reproductive rights movement’s view of the unborn with that of humankind’s in its recorded history. And it is the preservation of an inherent humanity we have for our kind, in all stages and conditions, that is a vital part of staying civilized. Without that quality, we’re no better than mad dogs eating each other alive.

Robert Olejarz

Sidney

U.S. practicing terror at Gitmo

I am a member of the Amnesty International Chapter at Hartwick College. Recently, we participated in a project to raise public awareness about the human rights violations at the U.S.-operated Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Here are some things I feel that the public should be aware of.

President Bush recently vetoed the Senate’s Intelligence Authorization Bill, which would have prevented physical and mental torture methods such as use of dogs, waterboarding and sexual humiliation. Despite the fact that this sort of interrogation is being used on alleged terrorists, it is far too damaging on them. In captivity in the Guantanamo Bay facility, more than 100 detainees have died, 25 percent of them from homicide. Countless others will be forever scarred by the torture they endured. As a member of Amnesty International, and just as a human in general, I feel it is completely wrong to treat people like this.

A “War on Terror” seems impossible to win while there are divisions and sects in the world. However, it is. in my opinion, possible to lose; if we lose our country’s values of freedom and human rights, we have lost this war, which seems more theoretical and ideological than anything else at this point.

It is most important that people understand that there are human rights violations going on within U.S.-operated prisons. We need to counter terror with justice, rather than resorting to the tactics of terror.

Brian Terbush

Oneonta

Glue traps cruel to rodents

Animals caught in glue traps pull out their own hair or bite off their own legs in frantic escape attempts. Animals whose faces become stuck in the glue slowly suffocate, and all trapped animals are subject to dehydration and starvation. Glue-trap manufacturers say that trapped animals should be thrown away along with the trap. Thus, the animals are forced to endure prolonged suffering.

Rodent infestation can be prevented by storing food and trash in sealed containers, sealing holes and cracks and by closing gaps around doors and windows. Before sealing a hole, make sure no animals will be entombed.

I am pleased CVS, Rite Aid, Albertsons and Safeway have stopped selling glue traps. All stores should stop selling them. Buy only humane live traps, so that the trapped animals can be released unharmed outdoors.

If you encounter an animal stuck to a glue trap, pour a small amount of vegetable or baby oil onto the stuck areas and gently work the animal free. Wear gloves. If necessary, take the animal to a veterinarian for assistance or euthanasia.

As humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote, a person “is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to aid all life which he is able to help, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living.”

Joel Freedman

Canandaigua

Freedman chairs the public education committee of Animal Rights Advocates of Upstate New York.

CFLs overall good for Earth

In his editorial strip “Mallard Fillmore” published on April 24, the unabashedly rude cartoonist Bruce Tinsley bashes compact fluorescent light bulbs, or CFLs, because they contain mercury. Readers should know that, while CFLs do contain small amounts of mercury, in balance they are beneficial to the environment because they are much, much more efficient than incandescent bulbs. Burning coal, the source of much of the electricity in the U.S., releases mercury into the atmosphere.

Using a more-efficient CFL bulb means burning less coal, which means releasing much less mercury than would result even if all the mercury inside a CFL were dumped into the environment. Proper disposal of CFLs can eliminate even this small risk. This information is very easily available on the Internet, even from Wikipedia, so Tinsley’s omission of these facts can only be attributed to ignorance or the deliberate intention to deceive.

See, I have learned something from reading all those Tom Sears columns.

Mark Kuhlmann

Oneonta