Letters to the Editor
cheesesteak_in_paradise
Published Letters: 21 Editor's Choice: 1
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Response to DurianJoe
[Read the article: My vegan friend insists I justify myself]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You are making the same argument as the LW's friend by equating factory farming with child labor. One may not approve of factory farming from environmental and avoiding unnecessary suffering to non-human animals but it is still in a different ballpark with child labor. They are still NON-HUMAN animals. And there are people, like the LW and like myself, who may feel compassionate towards animals but not hold them as equal to the suffering of human beings.
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Grad Students Also Affected
[Read the article: Buy my bio textbook, or refill my Pill? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]College students aren't the only ones affected - grad and professional students are required to have health insurance coverage, often too old (>25) to be on their parents' plans, and usually the school insurance plan is the cheapest or is included for PhD students. Therefore, we are forced to use the college clinic as primary care or be faced with high co-pays.
My school health insurance (same as for an undergraduate) does cover birth control but the co-pay is $30 brand name and $15 generic plus some varieties (such as Nuva-Ring) are not covered at all.
Ideally, we would all be using condoms but many people like a backup method and older students are often married or in multi-year relationships that are presumably leading to marriage or other permanence. For most couples the idea of a lifetime of condom-use for birth control (presuming monogamy and testing for STDs) is unacceptable.
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Call it Mifepristone
[Read the article: RU-486 has "transformed" abortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wish people would stop calling the abortion pill RU-486. RU-486 is the term used by the drug company that developed the medication in its in-house trials to distinguish it from compounds RU-1, RU-2,... RU-485, up to who knows how many were tested.
The correct medical term for the medication is mifepristone and the trade name (like "Lipitor" for atorvastatin) is "Mifeprex" or "Mifegyne" depending on what company it is purchased from.
It may be a pet peeve of mine as a medical professional but RU-486 is an ignorant term, and I also believe that using the correct word or brand name for the product will be useful in making this debate what it should be about - a prescription medication with uses and side effects like any other.
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Anyone else notice the similarity between today's letter and yesterday?
[Read the article: I can't stop stealing!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Both people sound young and both want to cheat - by stealing money or by breaking a promise of fidelity. Both have excuses about their childhood from a poor family or as an ugly duckling to justify. Both are consciously harming a person (boss, fiance) they profess to care about.
This is always my retort when people say it's not human nature to be monogamous. Sure, that's true - it's also not human nature not to take what we want even if it's not ours or not to injure someone who angers us (that flash of internal rage is an indication that we are both capable and desirous of harming another person in the heat of the moment).
Yet many people can get through life just fine without cheating on a spouse, stealing, or murdering. It's called morals and self-control.
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Other Options
[Read the article: Should I move back to Wisconsin because my mother has cancer?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You don't mention what sort of work you and your husband do or your particular financials circumstances but I wouldn't move. I would rent an apartment with a month-by-month lease in your hometown. That way you can go back there and spend weeks with your baby (and your husband if he is able to leave work) in a comfortable way that doesn't involved people's couches. If you are working, maybe you could take a leave of absence or switch temporarily to 4-day weeks so you can go to your hometown for 3-day weekends. Or see about telecommuting if you work in an office environment.
My advice would be: 1) Rent an apartment near your family that will be comfortable for you; 2) If you are working, talk to your boss/HR about a more flexible schedule or a leave of absence
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How much parenting do men really want?
[Read the article: Are men victims of forced abortions?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I understand this has the potential to be inflammatory but I mean it as an honest discussion point. I still think abortion should be 100% the woman's decision because it is her body/her medical risk in giving birth. (FYI - the stats on that are the mortality rate of giving birth in the US is 100x that of having a surgical abortion and 10x that of having a medical, eg RU-486, abortion as I learned in my MD training).
But, in the case the women was willing to give birth provided she didn't want to parent (an option for men, who are required to provide financial not custodial support), how many men of unplanned, non-married pregnancies would want to be a single, full-time parent to an infant? Seriously. I think most men would prefer part-time or co-parenting because single parenthood is really hard and financially disadvantageous, a fate of that happens to a number of the women who do not have abortions.
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@6Stringer - Actually this "choice" doesn't cost you anything
[Read the article: Want the pill? It'll cost ya.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reason birth control pill prices increased at colleges and clinics is NOT because the federal government stopped paying for them. And remedying the problem would also NOT involve the federal government (or you, 6Stringer) paying any more money for offer people's choices, as you put it.
It happened because the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (into effect in 1/2007), in an unrelated attempt to control Medicare/Medicaid spending, set prices for all types of medications. Pharmaceutical companies had been giving colleges birth control pills out of their pocket, at a loss, for 20 years in order to later get lifetime loyal customers (same principle as drug samples). But with minimum costs set, they weren't able to do that anymore. Hence, price increases.
So it would only cost you money, 6Stringer, if you owned stock in a company that made birth control. But even then, the companies were doing it willingly because once college-educated women (ones likely to have jobs/money in the future) got to like a brand and regimen, they will stay on it post-graduation.
So, really, let's debate the real issue of restricting women's reproductive choices. The "taxpayer" argument is a falacious smokescreen and Congress/Bush know it.