Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994 TAG: 9406270128
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BUD JEANSONNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Haynie indicates that the waning interest in Clinton's health-care plan is due to confusion. Isn't it interesting that she can speak for ``most Americans,'' indicating that they aren't capable of knowing what's best for them? The truth is that ``most Americans'' know full well what effect Clinton's health-care reform will have on their lives, and they don't want it.
Haynie says that we have an unacceptably high rate of unintended pregnancy, unwanted childbearing and sexually transmitted infections, along with a raging AIDS epidemic. I submit that these problems have little to do with health-care reform. All of the above are behavioral problems. These can be eradicated by changing personal behaviors without ever going near a physician or hospital.
Every woman who gets up in the morning has the choice to reproduce that day. It has nothing to do with health care. Haynie makes the ridiculous statement that ``The inability of women to exercise reproductive choice makes prevention impossible ... '' She's saying that without something women already have, they'll get pregnant no matter what they do. They won't be able to help it. It will happen if they have intercourse or not. What a frightening thing to all women.
Haynie continues to point out untruths. There's no way we can be sure that women will die if they don't get abortions. I'd like to see her documentation for that statement.
Her next paragraph continues to bewilder thinking people. She says that without comprehensive reproductive-health care, more teens will get pregnant, and there will be more unwanted births, more poverty and more sexually transmitted diseases. To believe that a piece of paper simply saying that there's comprehensive reproductive-health care has the power to suddenly stop teens from getting pregnant and the other results mentioned is simply ridiculous. A piece of paper can't possibly stop a pregnancy.
Then she gets to the solution: Simply offer universal access, and all pregnancies will be intended and there'll be no reproduction-related illness.
Haynie states that passage of a health-care reform bill will improve the lives of all Americans. Hogwash. Just ask the people in Britain, Canada and Sweden if their lives have been improved with their health-care systems.
No, simply put, she's a pro-abortionist. That's the bottom line in all of her rhetoric. Like others who believe as she does, she thinks abortion is the answer to all of America's problems. In fact, abortion is a major cause of many women's problems. If a health-care reform bill only addressed legal abortion, Haynie would probably be very happy. To heck with anything else being in the bill.
I believe abortion is such a controversial issue because people inherently know it's wrong. It's the willful taking of an innocent life. Murder, by any other name, is still murder.
Bud Jeansonne of Bath County is a health-care administrator at a nursing home.
by CNB