Letters to the Editor: If Kansas voters can uphold abortion rights, so can San Clemente
To the editor: Voters in Kansas who upheld their state constitutional right to an abortion have a message for San Clemente City Councilman Steve Knoblock and his "sanctuary for life" resolution: The majority of voters are not interested in politicians moonlighting as untrained doctors or as theologians.
Soon, Californians will vote on reproductive issues, and I predict a similar outcome. Good public policy is fact based. Knoblock’s resolution is fact free, containing only his personal beliefs.
Sadly, it is not free of disrespect for the diverse religious views among his constituents. Nor is it free of disrespect for rape and miscarriage survivors when he proposed a city ban on the healthcare they need. His resolution is a morality play cloaked as city business.
Knoblock should acknowledge that his resolution is not fact-based policy and is far outside the core issues he was elected to address. Kansas voters understood the importance of such distinctions. I trust that California voters do too.
Kerry Dunn, San Clemente
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To the editor: My mother grew up in China's Cultural Revolution. She witnessed her parents being whipped in public during denunciation rallies when she was little.
My mom fought hard to flee trauma and totalitarianism. When she escaped her abusive husband and moved to Beijing, where she got her abortion, she was pursuing a life of liberty and security, which she envisioned for herself and her children.
Yet as the Chinese Communist Party tightened control, her fears reemerged and she sent her children to the United States.
When Roe vs. Wade was overturned, I felt intense frustration as a young, first-generation immigrant. Right now, 14 states have completely banned abortion or have passed bans after six weeks of pregnancy. This country is going backward, invading a woman's autonomy over her own body.
Where would my mom be today if she didn't get the abortion and a second chance? Will I have agency over my body in this supposedly free country?
Kansas' mobilization of the youth vote to defeat an antiabortion constitutional amendment brought me hope. So please, cast your vote for initiatives and candidates supporting reproductive freedom. Please organize and vote for our rights, especially for the vulnerable immigrant women lacking essential healthcare in this country.
Shuci Zhang, Culver City
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To the editor: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) may be the most consequential politician of the 21st century. His unwavering project is to convert American government and politics into a system of minority rule.
McConnell has made remarkable strides in this direction, to the point that the urgent question becomes how we can correct course and get back on the original model of balance that the founders intended?
Kansas' expression of the majority view on abortion, on which minority rule has imposed serious restrictions, is an important sign this corrective process has begun.
Glenn Pascall, Dana Point
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
