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Farmington Press - 3/17/2018

Abortion

Prior to Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, if you were a "poor" woman and you needed an abortion, you had to go stand in front of a group of doctors and plead your case as to why you should be allowed a safe and clean abortion. Each hospital had its own groups. They decided whether you got the abortion or not. For the rich woman it made no difference to her. Her condition was disguised on her medical chart and she went right on through without any hassle. What Roe did was give the same right afforded to rich women to "poor" women also.

Legalizing abortion saved women from death, from injury, and from fear of arrest. It gave women enough control to get an education, a job, and freed them from shotgun weddings. It allowed women to see themselves as mothers by choice, not fate.

The Republican Party led by the so-called Christian right have been successful in turning back the clock. They are determined to place these "poor" women back in the same condition they were in before Roe. All of these nibbling laws they enact are meant to make it harder to get an abortion. They are punishing laws. But, here again is where the hypocrisy comes in. It punishes only the "poor" women. It doesn't bother the rich female, she just goes with the flow and ignores them. The Evangelical Christian just ignores this and goes on to punish the "poor" woman.

Missouri legislators now require a 72 hour waiting period. Yet these women keep coming and keep trying. Then try to scrape together the 500 dollars they need to drive across the United States to the clinic and then may have to sleep in the car, when they can't afford a motel. Then they must run the gauntlet of fanatics hollering "baby killer" and taking down their names and license numbers. The rich female just ignores all of this stuff and just goes right on into a hospital for hers. And the pro-life people just ignore it as if it their hypocrisy doesn't exist.

About fivers after Roe the Republican Party realized how they could use Roe to get their candidates elected to office. They started using the Christian right to use abortion as a wedge issue. They have a special devious delight to dream up special laws to punish these women. Like Virginia, enacting a law to require 5 foot wide hallways. To require transvaginal ultra sounds, forced hearing of fetal sounds and other inflicted cruelties. Now requiring second opinions. These are not things that help these women, but laws to punish. The reality is that the same old fanatics are still running the show.

In Missouri, we have the same old single issue voters. They would vote for the anti-abortion candidate even if it meant next month they would lose their social security. If it wasn't for the abortion issue, most of these people would have nothing to run on. It's all they have. If you are a Republican running for office and you don't use the abortion issue, then you won't get elected.

Now these people want a personhood amendment in Missouri. They want you to believe that five minutes after you get out of bed with your wife that there is now a third person in the room. They think that these laws will get them to the back door of Roe. Even if they had two more Supremes, I don't think it would make any difference. After all these years, to reverse Roe would create a revolution in this country. Most politicians could not hold on after that. What's wrong with leaving this the decision of a woman and her doctor?

Bob Roney

Ironton

Money is

the enemy of truth

Would you repeatedly hire the same plumber to fix the same leaky faucet? How much patience would you have with an ineffective plumber? How much money would you be willing to spend for a plumber who couldn't fix your leaky faucet?

Missouri taxpayers spend upwards of $35,000,000 per year on an overly expensive ineffective program called Sex Offender Civil Commitment. Missouri is one of twenty states that have sex offender civil commitment statutes. The thirty (30) other states, once they realized the exorbitant cost of this ineffective program, chose not to enact sex offender civil commitment laws. What do citizens in those 30 states know that citizens in Missouri don't? Many say that if Missouri citizens knew the truth about civil commitment they would be beating down the legislatures' front door demanding the statute be repealed.

The Missouri Department of Mental Health wastes nearly $400 every day to confine each of the approximately 250 civilly committed former sex offenders. Apparently they don't have to justify the ineffectiveness of the program or their exorbitant spending, at least not until Missouri citizens hold them accountable.

So how did this happen to a program that seemed like such a good idea back in 1999? The initial plan was to place the worst of the worst, most dangerous, sex offenders into the program. The former sex offenders would participate in intensive treatment programs, then process back into society in five to ten years. The original cost estimate for the program was "wishful thinking" as was the 5 to 10 year reintegration.

Missouri sex offender civil commitment began in 1999, but in 2006 the legislature passed a bill which totally eliminated the possibility of discharge or unconditional release from commitment. So no matter how well a former sex offender does in treatment they will always be under the care and control of the Department of Mental Health for the rest of their lives. Men in their 20's face potentially sixty (60) years in civil commitment, forever, and at taxpayers' expense.

SORTS, the Sex Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment Services, where the civilly committed are warehoused, keeps men well beyond the time originally intended. Elderly men, who are no longer dangerous, remain banished from society and families to spend their remaining few years in the Department of Mental Health. Dr. Joseph Plaud, Ph.D., noted expert in sexual recidivism, testified, "Age is the single, potent, dynamic, risk factor, short of death, that we have right now in the prediction to reoffend. So few men in the sixties, even those with histories of multiple sex offenses, reoffend as to make the recidivism rate of this group of men approach zero statistically."

The Missouri Sex Offender Civil Commitment Program does not work, never has, and, unfortunately, never will. When we civilly commit those we are still mad at along with those who are actually dangerous, we must be ready to close down many beneficial programs to pay for our emotional responses. How many children will go without free school lunches because funding was diverted to pay for ineffective civil commitment? How many homeless veterans won't receive the care and treatment they have earned? How many elderly Missourians will lose medical coverage because the state decided to continue throwing good money after bad into a program that simply doesn't work?

Citizens don't forget that this is your money, not the politicians' and certainly not the Department of Mental Health's. Call, write, or email your State Senator and State Representative and tell them to do the right thing. Plug this black hole the state has been needlessly pouring money into for nearly twenty years.

Missouri, you deserve better.

Stan Schell

Farmington