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Letters: Would be 'insane' for Trump to limit women's contraception choices

Don't limit birth control access One has to question the intelligence, morality, and even the sanity of a decision to limit women's access to contraception. ("Covered birth control at risk," Dec. 1). One can argue with ideas about the value of individual life during its formative stages, but to tinker with legislation that will surely increase the number of unwanted pregnancies seems inane, cruel, and even insane.

Don't limit birth control access

One has to question the intelligence, morality, and even the sanity of a decision to limit women's access to contraception. ("Covered birth control at risk," Dec. 1). One can argue with ideas about the value of individual life during its formative stages, but to tinker with legislation that will surely increase the number of unwanted pregnancies seems inane, cruel, and even insane.

What can President-elect Donald Trump and Tom Price, his choice to become secretary of health and human services, be thinking? Or are they not capable of thought?

|John Brodsky, M.D., Swarthmore, johnbrodsky7@verizon.net

Addicts long dumped in city

I lived and worked in Honey Brook from 1991 until moving into the city in 2006. While living there, my wife and I regularly rode the Thorndale train into the city for medical appointments, theater programs, and dining. Frequently, young men from the veterans hospital in Coatesville would board the train with a one-way ticket to Philadelphia and a list of homeless shelters because the time for their drug rehabilitation was up. Many times the shelters were closed by the time they got there, which resulted in their spending a night on the street in a city they didn't know. My point being that Puerto Rico's actions are not the first incidence of government agencies dumping their problem people on the city ("Phila. officials launch probes into dumping heroin addicts," Nov. 20).

|P. Richard Grove, Philadelphia

Less educated can be snobs too

A recent letter writer correctly pointed out that those without advanced education have talents and do not deserve to be mocked by elitists ("Educational snobbery," Nov. 20). Yet the writer's closing suggested that he in turn mocks the educated, saying that: "If the pollsters (all college grads) are so smart, how did they get this election so wrong?" I have seen reverse snobbery for years; people saying that educated people have no common sense, that they really don't know anything, that they all look down on others, etc. I have worked hard to achieve my educational goals, and do not want someone to assume that just because I have degrees that I am an elitist snob. I am neither one. To quote the earlier writer, "We need to stop categorizing people."

|Paul C. Ziegler, Oreland, zieglerpc@comcast.net

Division not new for America

Pundits are saying that the country has never been so divided. They are wrong. This country was founded on the huge lie that "all men are created equal." Just ask anyone other than straight, white men if that has ever been true. The structural defect of this lie was slavery, a cancer that gradually ate away at the soul of the nation, causing a war in public discourse that eventually led to a war on the battlefield. The war ended, but the scab left behind never fully healed, and we have been picking at it ever since. Lincoln preserved the fragile union of states, but I wonder if we would all have been better off if he hadn't even tried.

|Ernie Peacock, Langhorne

Must protect Delaware basin

Lawmakers from both parties have supported a new Delaware River Basin restoration program. I urge them to push for inclusion of its funding in the final version of the Water Resources Development Act. The basin provides drinking water for 16 million people, five percent of the U.S. population. Think about the consequences of a Flint-type environmental issue along the Delaware. Now is the time to put the Delaware on par with the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and other major watersheds in receiving dedicated federal support.

|Peter S. Hughes, president, Valley Forge chapter, Trout Unlimited, Chester Springs