Letters: Girl's innocence ruined by pregnancy. Guns OK in schools but not divisive topics.

Letters to the Editor
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An all-too-common story

I grew up in St. Marys, Ohio. St. Marys at that time was a blue collar town with a "good" and a "bad" side. I lived on the bad side, which was called Rabbit Town.

According to the Columbus Women's Commission, underage pregnancy often initiates a cycle of poverty for women, with only 38% of girls who have a child before the age of 18 earning a high school diploma by the age of 22.
According to the Columbus Women's Commission, underage pregnancy often initiates a cycle of poverty for women, with only 38% of girls who have a child before the age of 18 earning a high school diploma by the age of 22.

I was in sixth grade with another student who was developmentally disabled. Her only friends were her cousins. We were in sixth grade, playing jump rope, standing in the cafeteria line, saying the Pledge of Allegiance, but this student was pregnant.

More: Pregnancy after rape 'an opportunity'? Ohio GOP lawmaker sparks outrage in abortion debate

Of course, it was rape, possibly incest. 

Imagine now, in 2022, another sixth-grade girl on the playground in Ohio. Belly growing, hopes fading and all the children on the bus whispering, tittering and wondering.

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I still wonder today what happened to that poor girl, now a woman, and if she survived what was dealt her. Don't you? And what about her rapist? Her brother? Father? Uncle? Neighbor? Who was it that raped a child and ruined her innocence and her world?

Our world is such that the men are rarely held accountable. But why do our legislators want to turn their backs on these girls, these children?

More: Ohio man guilty of rape after 12-year-old girl becomes pregnant

Is it arrogance or ignorance? If it is ignorance, then you only need to hear the stories of the communities like Rabbit Town today. They are all over Ohio and the stories of children like this sixth-grade girl are still being written.

Listen.

Jan Goens Kennedy, Dublin

Cori Sorensen, a fourth-grade teacher from Highland Elementary School in Highland, Utah, receives firearms training with a .357 magnum Dec. 27, 2012, from personal defense instructor Jim McCarthy in West Valley City, Utah, where teachers and administrators are allowed to bring guns to school. Rick Bowmer | Associated Press
Cori Sorensen, a fourth-grade teacher from Highland Elementary School in Highland, Utah, receives firearms training with a .357 magnum Dec. 27, 2012, from personal defense instructor Jim McCarthy in West Valley City, Utah, where teachers and administrators are allowed to bring guns to school. Rick Bowmer | Associated Press

The definition of 'irony'

It appears to me that the people who don't want well-educated teachers to have control over what or how they teach certain topics in the classroom are the same people who think teachers with too little firearm training should be allowed to carry a firearm in the classroom. Maybe the legislators ought to get a lesson in irony.

Chris Kloth, Columbus

What's next, spying on people?

In a recent interview on NPR, a pro-life leader said ridding the country of anything that stops the fertilization of an egg is the next thing to ban.

More: Letters: 'Don't like abortions? Don't get one.' Saving babies doesn't equal killing moms.

Oklahoma's legislature on Thursday passed a bill that would ban abortions from the stage of "fertilization" and allow private citizens to sue abortion providers who "knowingly" perform or induce an abortion "on a pregnant woman." The measure now heads to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has previously pledged to sign every piece of legislation limiting abortion that reaches his desk.

I cannot add anything to previously published pro-choice letters. I do have questions for the politicians, both male and female, that bow down to these pro-life leaders:

Did you have premarital sex? If so, did it result in a pregnancy? Did you use contraception? How often did you have premarital sex and with how many partners? Did you marry one of your partners? If married, are you using any contraceptive method? If so, which one? Are you going to allow people to spy on your daughters and

granddaughters in hopes of accusing one of attempting an abortion and earning $10,000?

I think it is important we know how hypocritical the “pro-life” legislators are as they vote to prohibit people from making their own decisions regarding family planning and the health of the mother.

More: Opinion: 'Abortion' saved my mom. Letting her die would have been miscarriage of justice.

The pro-lifers driving around with aborted fetuses on their vans and putting banners over the highways should add a child riddled with bullets and the look of a hungry child.

Your pro-life legislator is not pro-life. Stop being a one-issue voter and care about all children.

MerryLynne Glatstein Lincove, Columbus

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Letters: Hold men responsible for raping, impregnating young girls