LETTERS

Respect human lives

I was highly incensed with Ms. Alice Long’s letter. Daring to compare a pregnant woman who does not wish to be pregnant with our soldiers is repulsive and just plain stupid to me. Our brave men and women in service deserve our utmost respect.

If a woman does not wish to be pregnant, use birth control that is readily available or just abstain from having sex. Seems pretty simple to me.

Why can’t people see the value in every human life and stop killing precious, innocent babies?

GEORGIA LANDRUM Fairfield

Bay Children are abused

I ask Peggy Gant et alia if they sleep well considering that crying infants are getting their heads bashed in, smothered, shaken, are burned with lit cigarettes, or used as punching bags by parents who do not want them.

If they survive that, then they may be subjected to physical, psychological and/or sexual abuse.

And Tea Party electeds are trying to get rid of SNAP and defund Head Start and Planned Parenthood.

Apparently, TeaXian family values equal “Protect the fetus, abuse the child.”

Just as Jesus would do?

SALLYE MARTIN Fayetteville

Protect critical habitat

The Legislative Council asked Attorney General McDaniel to intervene in the federal government’s proposed designation of critical habitat in Arkansas for two threatened mussel species. As a biologist and landowner in Arkansas, I’d like to speak in supportof the designation. I disagree with the Legislative Council’s statement that it would have “a potentially devastating impact” on Arkansas landowners.

There is significant economic value to healthy ecosystems. Beneficial services provided by mussels include filtering and cleaning water, excreting nutrients in a form readily available for consumption by fish, aquatic invertebrates, plants and other creatures essential to healthy river systems, and providing an important substrate to shelter and nurture fish and insect larvae. By attaching firmly to river bottoms, mussels stabilize stream beds and minimize erosion.

According to Caryn Vaughn, a zoologist at the University of Oklahoma Aquatic Research Facility in Norman, Okla., mussels are the most globally threatened freshwater organisms. A U.S. government listing of Arkansas’ endangered species states that “Arkansas has the most species of native freshwater mussels of any state west of the Mississippi River (83 species).They also are the most endangered group of animals in Arkansas.”

Mussels are long-lived, slow-growing and have low fecundity. When populations are severely depleted, recovery is slow and there is a greater risk of extinction. In Arkansas, we bill ourselves as the Natural State; good stewardship requires recognizing and committing to protect critical habitat. JANE STEINKRAUS Fayetteville

Wumo’s just juvenile

I agree with the consensus, so far, regarding the new Wumo comic strip.

This one is by far the most juvenile comic we are having to endure if we want laughs from the comic section of this paper. My 9-year-old granddaughter can do better.

DONNA B. GREEN West Memphis

What loss of liberty?

Terry Mattingly recently did a great job of highlighting the inanity of the religious-liberty argument, likely not the author’s intent. In reviewing a talk by Douglas Laycock, the discussion argued that “liberals” want to “force religious objectors to affirm … and pay for” their sexual freedoms.

What? I kept looking for the evidence but never found it. “Loss of religious liberty” evidently means that the religiously correct are less able to discriminate against persons for their sexual orientation or other nonreligiously correct sexual attributes or practices. Instead, offended, religiously correct persons are now forced to accept those others’ legal rights in housing, employment, health insurance or marriage.

How could this state of affairs be twisted to mean that the religiously correct have lost their liberty? Do they not still have the right to live as they wish, worship however they please, believe whatever they want? Are their rights to marriage, housing, employment or health insurance infringed?

Are they really saying that their religious liberty hinges on their ability to deny housing or services or employment to others based on the others’ lack of adherence to a particular religious dogma?

Quoting Laycock: “No living in peace and equality and diversity … if you are a religious dissenter, you have to conform or withdraw.”

Are these folks so inflamed that they’ve lost reason? By this logic, the religiously correct would be forced to marry a same-sex lover or have an abortion. But wait-since when did religion involve reason?

DENELE CAMPBELL West Fork

Equal access to justice

The current rules of professional responsibility for attorneys merely suggest that each attorney provide 50 hours of pro bono work each year, though not mandatory.

I believe the rule should be changed to actually require attorneys to do pro bono work, or at least at a reduced rate, or face penalties. My suggestion is to require 2 percent of an attorney’s caseload be spent in pro bono, 6 percent at a reduced fee, or donate the equivalent of 1 percent of their practicing hours to an organization or group that would provide the pro bono services. My suggested penalty would be, after three years of noncompliance, imposing a fine equivalent to 3 percent of their practicing hours.

Other states have made their own requirements separate from that of the American Bar Association’s suggestion that Arkansas follows. Currently the rule begins by saying: “Every lawyer has a professional responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay.” This phrase loses its value when the attorneys who agree to it do not actually practice what they preach.

There is going to be opposition to this requirement from the legal field, but I believe requiring only a small percentage of their time is not too much.

One of the problems our country faces is a lack of equal access to justice. While this a complicated issue, providing more pro bono outlets certainly cannot hurt. Legal Aid is not able to handle all of the cases that need to be represented pro bono, and that is where the professional responsibility of attorneys can kick in.

KAYLEE WEDGEWORTH Fayetteville