Planned Parenthood prevents more abortions than it provides Re: “Abortion is Planned Parenthood’s business,” From Readers, Oct. 18
William Luksik’s letter was shocking in its limited perspective. I thought everyone knew that Planned Parenthood, through its family planning services, prevents more abortions than it provides and works to make health care accessible and affordable. He could have visited PP’s website to learn about the services it provides, such as Pap and HPV tests and breast cancer screenings.
Mr. Luksik’s naive letter suggests he is not old enough to remember the time before Roe vs. Wade. He might ask his grandmother how it was when relatively safe abortions were only available to women of means, while young, unmarried poor women resorted to desperate actions, often leading to painful death.
I’m not a clinician, but just this week I helped a father find a clinic for his pregnant young daughter who had been gang-raped. If Mr. Luksik really advocates a return to those days, he might consider a compassion checkup at a Planned Parenthood clinic, where he would hear lots of stories like that.
Ken Sandin
Rockville
Garbage is another name for untapped energy
Re: “Study: Md. trash-burning power plants dirtier than coal,” Oct. 14
It’s astonishing that an environmental organization makes such a strong case for landfilling in Maryland when the European Union, Japan, South Korea and even China are encouraging waste-to-energy projects to divert valuable materials from landfills. Modern facilities are heavily regulated under the Clean Air Act and meet or exceed stringent regulatory standards.
Columbia University’s Earth Engineering Center released a study last week which found that if all of the municipal waste currently landfilled in this country were diverted to new waste-to-energy power plants, we would produce enough electricity to power more than 16 million households. The study also found that such diversion of household waste could also significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from landfills.
Thanks to its recycling and waste-to-energy programs, Maryland is fifth on the list of states that try to approach sustainable waste management, which is already an important source of clean, reliable and renewable energy in the United States. It could increase nearly tenfold if people started considering the greenhouse gas emission, land use, and other environmental impacts of landfilling, the only practical alternative.
Nickolas J. Themelis
New York
GOP should concentrate on foreign spending
Why should the United States should spend money on foreign assistance when we have so many pressing needs at home? This issue returned to the stage during last Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate.
Our firms are among dozens of international development companies headquartered in the United States that employ Americans to help execute U.S. foreign policy on development projects overseas, often alongside U.S. troops and in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development. We also provide critical health services, education, infrastructure and humanitarian assistance to developing countries. Removing this positive U.S. presence in a volatile global landscape could have grave consequences for our homeland security.
As lawmakers debate the fiscal 2012 budget, we hope they consider that many of these projects build new markets for U.S. goods and fuel the creation of jobs at home. Indeed, most of America’s top trading partners, including South Korea, Brazil and Singapore, are graduates of U.S. development assistance programs.
We support lawmakers’ efforts to protect development assistance, which account for a tiny fraction of all U.S. spending but play a crucial part in our nation’s economic and national security. We also support tough oversight and accountability, but robust and cost-effective development assistance is not mutually exclusive.
Tom England
President, ME&A
Bethesda
Claire Starkey
President, Fintrac
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
