OPINION

Tuesday's letters: Controlling women, cutting school money, disgusting Democrats, more

Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Olivia Solomon, a student of University of Central Florida, holds a sign that reads "My uterus shouldn't be more regulated than an AR-15 #Keepabortionlegal," during a rally Feb. 16 against HB 5, a Florida bill that would ban abortions in the state after 15 weeks after pregnancy.

Effort to control women's bodies sad to see

I read with horror and anger Feb. 18 the article regarding the Florida Legislature moving forward with a stricter and more punitive abortion law limiting a choice that a woman might make. What a travesty!

The article (“House OKs abortion restriction”) quoted a University of Central Florida student, who wisely said, “The fact that there are more regulations on my body than there are on a weapon that can actively kill hundreds of people in minutes is ridiculous to me.”

Wow! How true. How sensible. How sad.

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Then I read about the anti-vaxxers who cry out against a COVID-19 vaccine that will protect them, their families, their children and their neighbors from getting very ill as their choice, for their bodies. Why do they have a choice for their bodies and women do not have the same choice for theirs?

Choice is choice – for an abortion, a flu shot, a book I would like to read or have my children read or any decision that one can make on one’s own. It should not be legislated.

“Someone without a uterus should not be making a decision about what someone with one should do with it,” stated the UCF student.

How true. How sensible. How sad that we have to be talking about this again, 49 years after this choice was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Gloria Peretz, University Park

DeSantis uses school funding cuts as cudgel

I was disgusted to read that Gov. Ron DeSantis has endorsed the Florida House plan to strip $200 million in education money from the Florida counties who issued masking requirements during the COVID pandemic. 

The Sarasota County school district’s potential budget cut? $12.1 million (“If Legislature does cut $12M from Sarasota schools, it’s unknown what impact will be,” Feb. 18).

“Most students didn’t want to wear masks in the first place!” exclaimed the governor. Apparently, it’s lost on our governor that most students in the Florida school system are not epidemiologists.

Budget author Randy Fine is being disingenuous when he says, “It’s not my intention to punish anyone. It’s to hold them accountable.” But Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democratic candidate for governor against DeSantis, gets it right when she calls the cuts “a disgraceful act of political retaliation.”

To all those letter writers who have crowed about “Our Great Governor DeSantis,” here is the truth: Your Yale- and Harvard-educated hero is just a thug who uses funding cuts as a cudgel to punish those who cross him.

Michael Phelan, Sarasota

Edit carefully to prevent racial slights

We have subscribed to your paper for more than 10 years, and this is the first time I’ve felt so disturbed that I must write to you.

I read the article on the Arbery trial, by Russ Bynum of The Associated Press (“Testimony begins in Arbery death hate crimes trial,” Feb. 16).

I was stopped cold by this sentence: “A jury of eight white members, three Black people and one Hispanic person was sworn in Monday to hear the case.”

Eight white members? But the three Black jurors and one Hispanic juror were not members, just people who happened to be there?

This is what systemic racism looks like. I’m sure Bynum had no intention to deliberately slight the racial minorities, but the differentiation is obvious.

I’m not Black, Hispanic or of another minority race, but this is such a blatant slight that your editors should have caught it. They could have changed it to, “The jury empaneled on Monday includes one Hispanic, three Black and eight white members.”

Please urge your editors to be more careful.

Charleen Gorbet, Sarasota

Aim disgust at Democratic policies

I must take issue with the letter writer who lambasted the GOP with typically liberal exaggerated claims and falsehoods about the supposed “insurrection” Jan. 6, 2021.  (“How far the formerly great GOP has fallen,” Feb. 10).

Where was this writer’s “disgust” with last summer’s looters and rioters in cities across the nation, some of whom burned buildings, destroyed property and killed or injured cops and others.

Where is his “disgust” with Democrats, and the current administration, for the open borders and thousands of illegal immigrants who continue to pour in? 

Where’s his “disgust” over its policies that let criminals out of jail to commit more crimes and injure people?  Where’s his “disgust” at runaway inflation, and ridiculous mask mandates and lockdowns that have been proven not to work?

Yes, I think he had it all wrong. I cannot imagine how any American who cares about our country, our Constitution and our law-abiding citizens can vote for these Democrats who have put us in these current chaotic circumstances. Period.

Bob Bolier, Sarasota