Commentary on the student blog post "Legalization of Cannabis"

This post is in response to the student commentary “Legalization of Cannabis” on the MoneyTalks blog. The article discusses the recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington and talks about some of the pros and cons related to said legalization. The author brings up some really good points about how legalizing marijuana should be regulated as a controlled substance that would only be made available when prescribed by a doctor to those who have a medical necessity for it’s use. I couldn’t agree more with this viewpoint. Marijuana should fall under the same regulations as narcotic drugs. These drugs certainly have their valid place in the medical world, but they are not freely distributed for any and everybody to use as they see fit. They are regulated and distributed only with a doctor’s prescription (well, they are supposed to be, at least…), and obtaining them without a prescription is illegal.

One subject regarding this legalization that I hear a lot lately is impairment and drug testing. What happens when somebody is under the influence of marijuana and gets pulled over or causes an accident? As far as I know, there is no quick test to detect marijuana like there is for alcohol. How do you hold somebody accountable who may cause an accident or get pulled over if they are under the influence? Or, what happens if somebody is in an accident, but they smoked marijuana 3 days ago. Technically, wouldn’t it still be found in their system through a drug test, even though they may not have been under the influence at the time of the accident? How do you regulate this? I certainly agree that there has to be more regulation of this substance, rather than just making it a free-for-all pot-fest for everybody that wants to get high.

Obamacare

One of the complaints that I keep hearing about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare,” is how the cost to employers will be so detrimental that they will have to start letting go of employees and/or reducing hours to disqualify employees from being eligible for insurance. One article that I read the other day talked about how some employers will pass on the cost to their customers, with one even stating that he will print a disclaimer in his menus that informs customers of a 5% surcharge due to Obamacare. His reasoning: he wants consumers to know that they are the ones who are actually paying for everybody else’s medical care. Wait…this is news?? I kinda figured this out on my own when I was in the hospital for the birth of my daughter and each ibuprofen I was given cost $8…each pill. I received a Tdap shot while I was there as well; it cost almost $400. At CVS, I could get the same shot for $64.99. While there are varying opinions on what exactly the inflated rate of hospital services is, the consensus seems to be that it is around 400%. When my daughter had a seizure and was transported to a hospital that was 5 minutes away, we paid $800 out of pocket. That was AFTER insurance paid their part (and we have very good insurance).

To those people that think this is something new, that Obamacare is just the government’s way of forcing the rest of us to pay for socialized medicine, it’s not. As long as uninsured people continue to visit emergency rooms to receive care for problems that are minor enough to be addressed in a doctor’s office, those of us with insurance will continue to make up the loss by paying more, be it through our premiums or our copays. We ALREADY pay for the healthcare for the uninsured. Now, that being said, I do believe that everybody has the right to healthcare. When you walk into a hospital, there are signs on the wall that clearly state that they cannot turn away somebody in labor or somebody with a medical emergency, even if they don’t have insurance. And this is definitely the right thing to do. But lots of people visit hospitals and ERs for situations that are not emergencies. Is Obamacare perfect? Is it the right answer? I don’t know, perhaps only time will tell. Hopefully, the government will figure out what does work from it and what doesn’t, and tweak the things that don’t work. But the road we have previously been following clearly does not work from a financial standpoint, and something has to change. Insurance companies aren’t going to change on their own…. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t going to lower prices on their own. Something has to be done to get healthcare affordable and under control. While there may be some negatives to this program, there are lots of great things that it will fix as well. One of the greatest things that I see coming from the program is that insurance companies cannot decline health insurance to someone with a pre-existing condition. I have a friend who has a genetic kidney disease that runs in her family. Her younger brother and sisters haven’t been tested for it yet out of fear that if they did have it, they would be labeled as having a pre-existing condition and would to be able to obtain health insurance. Now, they won’t have to worry about that anymore.

Commentary on the student blog post "Abortion: A Hot Topic"

In the student blog post titled "Abortion: A Hot Topic" on the blog "Contemporary America" the author discusses the controversial topic of abortion and presents her opinion, as someone who is pro-life, on the subject. She provides her own personal history of being adopted and of also making the decision to place a baby up for adoption herself, as an alternative to abortion. She also comments on how stricter abortion laws should be put in place and makes the statement that only God should decide the fate of these lives. While I respect her position of being pro-life and the opinions she has presented, I wanted to present another side to this discussion. The following is the commentary that I posted in response to her article:

I commend you on your decision to give your baby up for adoption after deciding that you were not in a position to raise her. As a mother myself, I cannot imagine what a difficult decision that must have been. But I have friends that are going through the adoption process right now after years of being unable to conceive, and this would, of course, not be possible if there weren’t women out there who made your same selfless decision. I also have friends that were adopted themselves, and I am certainly grateful that their birth parents choose to carry them to term and allowed them to be adopted by wonderful people who could give them a better life than they felt they could give themselves.

With that said, I also respect my friends that have had to make the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy, for whatever reason. And there are many reasons that women have to make this decision. Yes, there are women who choose this as a method of birth control. Unfortunate, yes, but it is their body and their decision on what happens to it. There are women who become pregnant as a result of being raped and choose not to carry the fetus to term – forced rape, raped under the influence, incest – regardless of how it happened, something happened that was beyond their control and they do have the right to control what happens to their body as a result. There are cases where there is damage to a fetus – be it genetic or environmental – that is irreversible and perhaps the parents do not want their child to live a life that revolves around the daily struggles that come with having severe disabilities or mental incapacitation. Unfortunately, this is an experience that my husband and I had to live through and made the difficult decision to terminate. And then, of course, there are the cases where the mother’s life is at risk and terminating the pregnancy may be her only chance for survival. Yes, I have heard the story of Tim Tebow and how his mother went against her doctor’s advice and chose to carry him to term. Yes, this is a wonderful story and I commend her actions and bravery for following through. I remember being pregnant with my daughter and thinking that I would do anything to ensure her survival, even if that meant my risking or losing my own life. And of course, I still feel that way. But I also now realize that I have the greatest responsibility in the world, as her mother, to ensure that she grows up safe, secure, and with both parents. So if I were pregnant again and was faced with a decision to have to terminate the pregnancy in order to save my own life, as difficult as it would be, that is the decision I would make to ensure that my daughter does not grow up without a mother. 

My point is this...I respect the decisions that you have made. I also respect the decisions that some of my friends have had to make and the decision that I had to make. And whichever it was, you and I both know that these decisions – adoption, abortion, termination for medical reasons - were not made easily or lightly and those babies are never forgotten. There are many people that believe that abortion for ANY reason is selfish and want to take that medical right away from women. But just because a woman elects to terminate a pregnancy, it does not mean that she is doing it for selfish reasons. Abortion is a difficult decision, yes, but it is one that should left up to a woman and her healthcare provider and she should not have to feel judged by anyone, especially those who have not walked in HER shoes.

Is the GOP "War on Women" a Reality?

If you read my government blog, you can probably figure out that women’s issues, particularly those pertaining to this election, are of particular interest to me. So I tend to get fired up when I consistently hear how this so-called GOP “war on women” is a farce, something made up by liberals to make the GOP look bad and take the focus off of President Obama’s failures. Wow…really? The GOP appears to have made it their mission to force their beliefs on all of us, especially women. They believe they know what is best for us, best for our bodies, and best for our lives. And why shouldn’t they? After all, these men are unbelievably knowledgeable about all things female. For instance: I think we have all heard that Rep. Todd Akin (MO) knows that women’s bodies have ways of “shutting down” to prevent pregnancy from legitimate rape. Richard Mourdock (IN), a Senate candidate, has determined that pregnancies that occur as a result of rape are “intended by God.” GOP Vice Presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) supports (and that word is a stretch) abortion only in cases where the mother’s life is at risk (wow, thank you for being so kind in considering that our life is important, too.) Rep. Joe Walsh (IL) believes there should be NO abortion exception when the mother’s life is at risk because as a result of modern science, women never die from pregnancy. (WHERE are these guys getting their information from??) And Rush Limbaugh basically said that women who use birth control are sluts (ha! I must have missed that on the list of possible side effects…”WARNING: may cause slutty behavior”). And you guys say the Democrats are making you look bad?

Hey guys, how about this…how about we leave the very personal decisions of family planning up to women and their doctors? How about admitting that you will never understand what it is to be a woman. That you will never know what it is like to become pregnant, whether by choice or as a result of rape or incest. That sometimes a choice to terminate a pregnancy IS in the best interest of a fetus that has not developed correctly and either will not survive or will have limited quality of life and that the choice to terminate that pregnancy is a gut-wrenching decision that is actually made out of love, not selfishness. That pregnancies CAN kill a woman…my mom had two ectopic pregnancies and almost died from the second one. How about accepting the fact that women who take birth control (for the actual purpose of birth control) are actually being responsible and that women REALLY DO take birth control pills for other medical reasons (a concept that many of them seem to find hard to grasp).

But of course, I'm just a woman. What do I really know...

Presidential Debate II: What Mitt Romney Really Said About Women

In the blog commentary titled “Presidential Debate II: WhatMitt Romney Really Said About Women” (posted October 17, 2012 on huffingtonpost.com), blogger Kathleen Reardon discusses comments made by Mitt Romney during the 2^nd presidential debate regarding his “binders” of women that were provided to him after he was elected as Governor of Massachusetts, in an attempt to increase the number of female staff members on his cabinet. Ms. Reardon points out how Mr. Romney’s comment was not only patronizing to women (whether intentional or not) but that it was insulting and she discusses the fact that Romney skirted the issue of equal pay for women, an issue that has been addressed by President Obama in his signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. She also mentions Romney’s story about a female member of his staff that needed flexibility in her schedule due to the demands of her family, and how he provided that for her.

Ms. Reardon takes a left-leaning side in the blog, pointing out some of Romney’s major missteps regarding women’s issues within the economy, specifically those regarding employment. She appears to aim her commentary at anyone in support of women’s issues. Ms. Reardon definitely shows a passion for this topic in her writing, which makes sense considering she is a professor of management at USC and has written books and articles regarding various issues in the workplace. I’m betting she knows a lot about women’s issues in the workplace and the inequalities that still exist.

I agree with the criticisms that she makes, however, I also think that emotions are dictating how people may be reading into his comments, including myself, at the time they were made. Romney has not proven himself to be a solid supporter of women and our issues, though he makes claims to the contrary. And while he may not have intended for his comments to come across as insulting, it’s easy to see how they can be interpreted that way. Think about it… if President Obama had made these same comments, I doubt many people would have given it a second thought. The difference? President Obama is vocal and active in support of women’s rights and equality, so his record speaks for itself. Romney isn’t, and as a result nothing he does say in support of women’s issues is going to come out sounding right, whether he is sincere or not. 

Sen. Olympia Snowe on how the GOP can mend its image among women

In the article “Sen. Olympia Snowe on how the GOP can mendits image among women” (posted August 24, 2012 on washingtonpost.com), Republican Senator Olympia Snowe (ME) talks about the GOP’s position on women’s issues, recent events that have solidified the notion that the GOP is waging a war on women, and what the GOP will have to do in order to win back some of the female vote for the upcoming presidential election. Senator Snowe references two events in particular - recent comments made by Representative Todd Akin (R - Mo) regarding how a woman’s body deals with rape and the hard-core GOP stance on abortion – that have damaged their relationship with female voters.

I believe Senator Snowe’s commentary is targeted at ALL women, both Democrats and Republicans alike. While Senator Snowe herself is a Republican, her views appear to be somewhat liberally conservative. She supports issues such as a woman’s right to choose, legalized abortion, and gay rights.

Senator Snowe’s main advice on how the GOP can win back the female vote is for Romney to “disassociate himself from the extremes within our party…” Specifically, she is referring to the very rigid stance that some members of the GOP have in regards to abortion – no abortions in ANY case, with no exceptions. I agree with Senator Snowe’s idea of disassociation, but considering that Romney has chosen a running mate who IS one of the extremists, I can hardly see how this will be possible.

Senator Snowe goes on to propose that Romney focus on another important set of issues to women, which are jobs and the economy. She also provides statistics on how women are affected by programs such as Medicare/Medicaid and advises on how Romney needs to show how he will support these programs going forward in order to benefit women.

While I agree with some of the suggestions that she makes, I think it will be difficult for Romney to change the minds of the female voters who are already siding with the Democrats due to the GOP's stance on these issues. Even if female voters thought there was sincerity in Romney’s claims and proposals, it’s too little, too late. The GOP has really hurt itself with the extremist views that many of its members are taking in regards to reproductive health and the rights of women. I think that Senator Snowe knows this is a problem that will not easily be resolved and is simply suggesting other issues to focus on in order to take the focus OFF of reproductive rights. As the article mentions, Senator Snowe will be retiring in January from her role as Senator, and while this may have some bearing on her decision to post this commentary and put the issues out there, I think it is more likely that because she is a woman and is already known to take a more liberal side to her conservative views, she feels as though she understands the concerns that women have about the issues at hand and can voice her opinion about them without retribution.

Romney calls for 'American leadership' in world

In an article posted on USAToday (dated Sept 13, 2012), Mitt Romney discusses the need for "American leadership" after the recent attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Libya. The article mentions a recent meeting between Romney and Polish politician and activist Lech Walesa, during which Walesa apparently stated that there was an “absence of American leadership in the world.” Romney makes a correlation between recent violent attacks and “the need for the U.S. president to be a respected leader around the world.”

Romney uses the deaths of the embassy employees to make yet another political statement and slam against the President, rather than truly taking time to pay respect to those who were killed and suggesting ways that the parties could work together to somehow resolve this issue. In a different article posted on Boston.com, it mentions that Romney was warned by both parties against "seeking political points over a crisis involving the death of US citizens abroad." 

Unfortunately, these types of personal and party-affiliated attacks occur on both sides. Remember when the Democrats blamed Bush for 9/11? (and I didn't agree with that attack against Bush either) I agree that the US president does need to be a respected leader, and perhaps a strengthening in leadership would be possible if the candidates (Mr. Romney…) weren't constantly finding ways to bring each other down and pit the parties against each other.