Correspondence

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 27, 1999

Keep Pressuring Government to Bring American Kids Home

Thank you for running the four stories on internationally abducted children ["Kids Held Hostage" March 8; "Kidnapped Kids Cry Out for Help" May 10; "State Abandons Kidnapped Kids" June 14; and "Justice Ignores Stolen Kids," Nov. 29]. You must run more. Expose those bureaucrats who would rather cover up their department's oversights, even at the cost of a parent not being able to recover their missing child. I cannot express strongly enough or clearly articulate how important this is! I am just a mother of two beautiful boys, but my worst fear is to live what those parents whose children have been abducted are living every day. Good job on those stories and keep it up. Write and educate and pester in the right places until change happens.

Kathleen Grylls

via Internet

Thank you so much for running the stories on the missing and kidnapped American children. Without your support we could not make any progress. It is much appreciated.

Connie Alexander

Reynolds, Ill.

NOW's President Argues Illogically on Child Issues

National Organization for Women, or NOW, President Patricia Ireland's screed against noncustodial "fathers" [Symposium, Dec. 13] contained the remarkable line that NOW has been "urging for more than 30 years that fathers take an equal share of responsibility in caring for their children," and she bemoans men who "abdicate financial responsibility for the children they father." NOW cannot rewrite history so easily. A man only can be a father if he creates or assists in the creation of a child. But NOW does not believe any man does either.

According to NOW: A child does not exist at conception -- it is just a mass of tissue. No man creates a child. A child only exists at birth, as partial-birth abortion demonstrates. Thus it is only the woman who creates a child. At most, the man contributes one-half of a set of blueprints (DNA). The woman provides the other half of the blueprints, the construction site and the building materials. So she is the one who constructs the child. A woman's right to choose her future is her right alone. Men have no say. If she chooses to abort, it is none of the man's business. If she chooses to deliver, it also is none of the man's business.

Also, according to NOW, the decision to have sex is not a decision to have a child, and the genetic relationship of the father to the child is immaterial. In fact, child support is an archaic remnant of patriarchal attitudes toward women, embodying the false idea that women need men to accomplish their life goals.

As Karen DeCrow, former president of NOW, once said: "Men should not automatically have to pay for a child they don't want. It's the only logical feminist position to take." Ireland seems to be ignorant of her own organization's position. How sad.

Steve Kellmeyer

Norfolk, Neb.

Children Have Free Access to Pornography on the Web

Something desperately needs to be done about the massive amount of pornography that is available on the Internet. Our 7- and 8-year-old kids are seeing XXX-rated pictures and it makes me sick.

It is way too easy for our children to get pornography on the Internet. Porn sites e-mail the kids with their Website addresses. The kids can go to the addresses and see as much pornography as they want for free. (They don't need a credit card.) We need to pass a law against unsolicited e-mail so that the porn sites can't do this. I urge you to do a story on this subject so that we can make as many people aware of this problem as possible. Thank you for your consideration.

Andrew Messana

via the Internet

Write: Insight, Correspondence Editor, 3600 New York Ave. N.E., Washington, DC 20002. E-mail: Insight@wt.infi.net. Fax: (202) 529-2484. Please include an address and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for space.