LETTERS: People in Puerto Rico need our help

I remember during a GOP debate someone yelled, “Let them Die,” when speaking of universal health care. Donald Trump is listening to his base.

The current conditions for more than 3 million American citizens in Puerto Rico are at stage 4 of a humanitarian crisis. No food, no water, no power, no shelter. Does this president know that these are 3.4 million of our own people? Or does he think these are people are foreign victims of their own circumstances?

We are getting a sample of Ayn Rand on a daily basis from Donald Trump, who has probably not even read the book, “Atlas Shrugged.” Mr. Trump is simply a monetary man whose thought process begins and ends with profit.

Louis A. DeRosa, Westchester

Out of step

It was deeply troubling to read your editorial opinion (“Quit playing politics with Illinois abortion rights,” Sept. 22) recommending that Illinois fund abortions with taxpayers dollars and codified the holding in Roe v. Wade. Both positions are well out of step with the views of most Americans.

Since it was decided in 1973, most Americans have rejected the broad holdings in Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton. A recent Pew Research poll (July 2017) showed that only 25 percent of all Americans support what Roe and Doe allow — namely, that abortion should be legal in all cases, at all stages in pregnancy. And Illinois’ fiscal woes are nationally known, yet the Sun-Times believes that taxpayers should now publicly fund abortions?

Abortion is an elective procedure, which is why even many private insurance policies will not cover it. What other elective procedures might the General Assembly ask taxpayers to pay for next? A majority of Americans — pro-life and pro-choice alike — agree that abortions should NOT be paid for with public dollars.

For example, when last year the Democratic Party called for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment (which prohibits federal funding of abortion) a Marist Institute poll (July 2016) showed that a majority of Americans — including those who support legal abortion — objected to the use of taxpayer funds to pay for it. Moreover, as the Washington Post later noted, “a breakdown of the statistic shows that most blacks, Latinos and independent voters oppose publicly funded abortion.”

Your editorial fails to explain how forcing taxpayers to pay for the private killing of unborn children might be a “social good.” It will do nothing to strengthen communities, families, or society and will continue to weaken our already fragile public finances. Abortion leaves a poor woman no better off the day after her abortion than she was the day before.

It requires not one iota of investment in a poor woman’s life. As civil rights activist Graciela Olivarez once noted, “The poor cry out for justice and equality and we respond with legal abortion.” Illinois can and should do better. Why not take those funds the General Assembly believes it has for free abortions and put them instead towards education, housing, and job training?

Mary Hallan FioRito,

Cardinal Francis George Fellow Ethics and Public Policy Center,

Elmwood Park

Come back, Fowler

Come back to Cubs, Dexter Fowler. You looked so sad in St. Louis, and I miss your smile.

Virginia Dare McGraw. Naperville

Speak up about this candidate

When the people who are apoplectic about flag and anthem protests show the same dismay over the imminent election of a United States senator who does not believe Supreme Court orders have to be obeyed, thinks gay sex should be a crime, says a duly elected Muslim should not be allowed to serve in Congress, and calls 9/11 God’s vengeance for sodomy, then I’ll accept that they love America as much as I do.

Joel Ostrow, Deerfield

Not sorry for Reynolds

Should we feel sorry for Mel Reynolds yet? He did his time for having sex with an underage campaign worker. Resigned from Congress in disgrace. Convicted of bank fraud and sentenced back to prison. Gets a “get out of jail free” card from Slick Willy on the president’s way out the door. Cons people into taking another chance on him, which he squanders like a $20 bill at the blackjack table and finds himself back in a courtroom again, floundering as his own representative.

Then in a tone-deaf moment he says, “I felt like I was literally being made fun of by the prosecution and the judge. My rights are not being taken seriously.” Mr. Reynolds, you have abused your rights as a lawmaker and a citizen to the point that you have become a laughingstock. Your public antics have added to the negative image of Illinois and made it impossible to take you seriously. So again I ask, just when are we supposed to feel sorry for you?

Scot Sinclair, Third Lake