Your Voice: July 6, 2022

Building more houses is not the answer. Rents are so high that ordinary people cannot afford to pay them, much less save up for a down payment on a house. There are some more affordable apartments in our area that charge on a sliding scale according to income, but there is a long waiting list to get in.

There are people right now scrambling to find shelter before they become homeless. Our city needs to put people above profits (more houses equal more sources of property taxes) and expedite the building of more affordable apartments.

Julie Trantham

Hood River

DNA Support Act

Now that women nationally no longer have control over their own reproductive status, we need a new law passed to ensure that men bear equal responsibility. I’d call it the Dad’s Numerical Accountability of Support Act, or the DNA Support Act.

Using DNA for verification of paternity of the embryo, the male responsible will be obliged by law to provide financial support for the woman during the pregnancy, including all medical costs. He must also support the woman and child until the child is 18, and the child would also have access to a full share of the dad’s estate. If the dad cannot provide this support, the state legislature would be obliged to.

If state governments won’t let women maintain control over their own bodies, the dads and states should be required, at a minimum, to provide economic support.

Leanne Hogie

Hood River

Is it true?

I was reading letters to the editor and saw the article "Double standards." And agree something needs to be done about deaths by guns. But I was curious where they got the information that they could save about 321 lives each day from firearms.

So I went to USA Facts Firearm Deaths and found out there were 45,222 deaths from firearms in 2020; that is about 124 a day. But what was interesting was that over 54% of those were suicides and mental health, and that leaves 57 per day.

I also found that according to NHTSA, there was an estimated 42,915 deaths and another site said only 4.8 million people were seriously injured in the U.S. last year from motor vehicle accidents. I don’t see anyone trying to recall cars. Again, these are socially acceptable.

The other thing people get upset about is the Republicans wanting to preserve Second Amendment rights. This is our Constitution and if it weren’t for it we could not have these discussions, First Amendment.

When you take firearms from law abiding citizens, then only criminals and police have them. And the police can’t respond till the criminals use their firearm.

Tim Sipe

The Dalles

The rot

The rot has spread so far that our own Cliff Bentz has been shown to be just as corrupt as the rest of the GOP. He is on the "pardon list." He voted to not certify Penn as part of the traitorous coup attempt. If you don't know, the "pardon list" is a list of people who asked the Last Guy for a blanket pardon in regards to the Insurrection activities. He continues to propagate the "Big Lie" and he continues to suck up to the crazy RNC leadership.

I wonder if Cliff Bentz actually knows how to tell the truth. It does not appear that it is so. He claims to not know he was on the list but I see no reason to believe him. Especially since he continues to espouse the erroneous idea that the Last Guy actually won and that there was widespread voter fraud. Which the Jan. 6 Committee Hearings have shown us to be untrue. Abraham Lincoln must be rolling over in his grave to see the depravity the GOP has sunk into.

I fear that if left unchecked, the GOP will turn America into a Third World Theocracy. SCOTUS has already made an excellent start in that direction.

We need leadership that will stand up to the Q Anon nut jobs that have taken over the GOP. I don't think we will ever find that with Cliff Bentz.

Debra Lutje

The Dalles

Supreme Court lies

So we now have two sitting Supreme Court judges who willfully lied, under oath, about their fundamental beliefs and have now vested those falsified beliefs on the largely unwilling American public.

If we can't rely on these judges to tell basic truths, how on earth can they be expected to uphold our Constitution? All of it. Not just the parts that fall into line with their personal preferences. We can't. It's that simple. They are repressive thinking, misogynistic and selfish and need to lose their jobs for their dishonesty.

To like-minded women I've discussed this with, they are tantamount to the American Taliban. Please pressure your elected officials to see that they are removed from their powerful positions before they can inflict any more harm on any portion of the population. They aren't only gunning for women!

Kathy Evinger

Hood River

Abortion democracy hypocrisy

I see the same people desperately trying to convince us democracy itself was in mortal danger on Jan. 6 are now melting down over the prospect of the abortion issue again being decided by that institution, as it was for the first 197 years of America’s history. It seems, for some, democracy is not so sacrosanct after all.

I understand I have no right to an opinion due to lack of a uterus, but here are some relevant facts:

1. This will not “outlaw abortion” in America. It doesn’t change ANY laws. Unlike the 1973 ruling, in which seven men dictated abortion law to the entire country, this ruling simply restores jurisdiction to the people via their elected representatives. You know, democracy.

2. Even liberal constitutional scholars admit the Roe v. Wade decision was overreaching. Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself said the court’s “… heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify”.

3. In America, there are 36 couples in line for each adoptable child.

4. At 20 weeks, a human fetus feels pain, and will recoil and attempt to escape from the instruments used in late-term abortions.

5. A majority of Americans DO believe in “abortion rights”, but a solid majority also believe in legal limitations on those rights. This is the reason pro-abortion activists are so incensed the question is now back in the hands of elected representatives.

6. Virtually all Western democracies require the mother make her “choice” by the end of the first trimester, if not before. China and North Korea are among the handful of countries that agree with Democrats she can wait until after the baby could survive outside the womb.

7. Unlike a tumor or kidney or appendix, it’s human, it’s alive, and abortion kills it.

These are facts. You can choose to ignore them, but you shouldn’t.

Steve Hudson

The Dalles

Pro-life controls women

I don’t like to use the terms “good“ and “evil“ when talking about politics, as the terms are nebulous, vague, and loaded. I prefer to talk about harm, whether certain policy is going to cause harm or reduce harm. But at a certain point, when a policy stands to cause so much harm to so many people, and knowingly so, I can’t think that there is any term or appropriate than evil.

I have written about in previous letters how the stripping away of abortion protections will cause great harm to many women while doing little to actually prevent abortions, which is ostensibly the point, but it actually gets worse.

If you don’t know, there is a shortage of baby formula in the United States. If you ask Republicans, they will blame it on Joe Biden even though Joe Biden has a instructed the military to fly in baby formula from overseas, but I digress. If it’s not bad enough that Republicans want to force women to use their bodies to reproduce against their will, 192 house Republicans voted against a bill sponsored by Democrats meant to allocate $28 million, a drop in the bucket really, to alleviate this problem. They voted against it. They voted against a solution. They want you to have to give birth against your will, but won’t do anything to make sure that child will have food.

In defense of the “pro-life” party, they don’t actually specify how long or enjoyable those lives need to be, as long as women are forced to produce them.

Benjamin Sheppard

Hood River

Editor's Note: Benjamin Sheppard works as a social worker.

Safe abortions

I am absolutely devastated to hear about the overturn of Roe v. Wade. This won’t actually stop women from getting abortions, it simply limits access to safe abortions. The implications of this on low-income and low-resources areas is especially concerning. This is a huge set back for women’s rights.

Sensi Graves

Hood River

Personal freedoms

The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is a massive infringement on a woman’s human rights as well as a total disregard for a woman’s right to discuss the incredibly painful decision of obtaining an abortion with only her doctor. And her doctor alone.

The federal government should have no right to intervene in such a personal matter such as this. Women can make their own decisions about their bodies.

Another really frightening aspect of the court’s decision is the extreme overreach involved. Anyone who loves their freedoms our country provides should be very concerned about the court’s decision

What other rollback of current law could the court do? Hundreds of new “Rollbacks” by this court could result in hundreds, possibly thousands, of personal freedoms being taken away.

We cannot afford to lose any more personal freedoms. We have to stand up and fight for the women of our country.

Mike Gallagher

Stevenson

Human rights

Fifty-two percent of Americans were stripped of basic human rights last week, rights supported consistently by over 60% of the American public for 50 years

I am furious, shaken and heartbroken. How low this deplorable, anti-American philosophy has brought us in such a short time. Instead of coming together with a unified purpose when hit with a global pandemic, Republicans brought us bizarrely unscientific unrest. Result: More than one million Americans dead. Instead of being honest about injustice, they divide us even further with their gleefully overt dog whistles and alternative facts. They’ve entirely delegitimized SCOTUS, which is packed with anti-Constitutional, anti-intellectual, anti-contemporary religious radicals. Instead of public service, Republicans profiteer, cover-up and then try an actual factual coup attempt. And their Big Lie festers.

At the first Jan. 6 committee hearing, Chairman Bennie Thompson said, “This was a coup attempt … and we can prove it.” Believe him. With chilling detail, they’ve laid out this case. Still the Republicans cleave to this unworthy person and absurdly allow a television station to tell them what information to consume; they have more loyalty to a TV channel than they do to our country. They cleave to a fully bankrupt political philosophy that doesn’t serve even them. It’s baffling how their showy patriotism has morphed into loyalty to one man — especially this man. But the Jan. 6 committee is doing its job, inch by painful inch.

Like many Americans, I believe that we’ve not been in such dire times internally since the Civil War. I’m too young to have experienced World War II, but I know world history. Any sentient being knows we’re on a precipice that stinks like fascism.

It’s not about inflation, which is global and brought to us by Russia’s war and a lingering pandemic. It’s never been about blind party loyalty, especially not when one party has no platform (?), is clearly engaged in a massive criminal cover-up and is not serving the public (arguably, since Reagan). We’re in an existential battle for our country. That, finally and terribly, is not hyperbole.

We have one antidote: VOTE. Check your registration; purges are happening.

Rene Westbrook

White Salmon

Human life

Being a human is a non-degree property. You don’t gain or lose your humanness.

Should you be able to kill a toddler because they are smaller than you? No. Should you be able to kill someone who doesn’t have arms or legs? No. Should you be able to kill someone because they are in a school? No. Should you be able to kill someone because they can’t feed, change, or even put themselves to sleep? No. Size, level of development, environment, and level of dependency should not dictate your humanity. The moment that a zygote is created, it’s a new human being with its own unique DNA. That’s a scientific fact. The question becomes, “How do we know what is right and wrong?”

What is the standard for morality? If our standard is based on what each individual thinks, then it’s arbitrary and there is no true standard. Everyone does what is right in their own eyes and if that affects or hurts someone else … who cares? If your standard is based on what society says, then it’s majority rules and you end up with the holocaust, human sacrifices, etc. We cannot trust humans to set the standard. We must turn to a holy, righteous, and just God: The One who is sovereign, unchanging, who created everything and who our entire reality depends on (yes, even you the unbeliever). The true and living God of the Bible created each and every one of us in His image. We’ve decided that we wanted to be our own gods and in doing so, we distorted what God deemed true and beautiful. We take that image bearer of God and disregard them as something that can be disposed of — nothing but a clump of cells that can be flushed down the toilet or thrown in the trash. Human life is so much more valuable than that. Human life is precious no matter the phase they are in and it is not only unjust to the human that is growing inside the womb it is also unjust to a holy and righteous God.

David Esquivias

The Dalles