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The U.S. Supreme Court has now ruled, by a 6-3 majority, that a public high school coach at a school-sanctioned event — a football game — may go to the center of the field to pray his very Christian prayer (Nation & World, June 28). He may invite his players to join him. He is simply exercising his right to free speech.
Is it really this simple?
In a different setting, what happens when a leader-coach, teacher or principal — a believer in one faith or another — decides it's time for a prayer? S/he calls it a private act but invites others to join in. Imagine a public school in the Twin Cities. Imagine a fourth-grade class made up of children of different religions and the teacher wants to pray, aloud and in the classroom, a prayer grounded in his or her religion.
Any children of a faith different from the teacher's might be quite uncomfortable. If/when they don't conform, is the one kid who is different made to feel embarrassment or, worse, shame at not participating? At some point, this can feel coercive. I can only imagine the reaction from some members of our community if a Muslim teacher wanted to share a Muslim prayer and explain its context. Maybe even teach it so kids could join in. The phones of conservative legislators would be ringing off the hook. Not with praise.
There is a good reason why public schools should be off-limits for prayer and open manifestations of religious faith. That means all faiths. It is just not the place for a practice that really puts unfair pressure on kids. The court's action to sanction prayer in a public-school setting (yes, even a football field counts) can easily lead from the quaint notion of "voluntary" to "expected." A classroom teacher who invites kids to start the day with a rousing "Lord's Prayer," with an opt-out clause for those who don't want to join in, will only exacerbate rifts in our society. Nonetheless, those who love the ruling are ready to push any boundaries to impose their will on the rest of society. The court has opened that door.
Joshua Gruber, Minneapolis
ABORTION RULING
Sanctity of life, vigilante justice: An idea expanded
Well, now that the Supreme Court has seen fit to deny the right of bodily autonomy by overturning Roe v. Wade, I strongly encourage the president to proceed with mandatory vaccinations under penalty of law. In fact, we can adopt Texas' bounty plan and allow citizens to sue vaccine avoiders for $10,000. After all, we respect the sanctity of life, right?
Bradley A. Ecker, Minneapolis
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I found Justice Samuel Alito's advice to women ever so helpful in his written decision overturning Roe and removing the right of a woman to control her own body. He points out that for women who object to the opinion, this packed Supreme Court "allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office."
Might I remind him that public opinion clearly favored not overturning Roe. That has been solid for decades. We clearly do lobby our elected officials. And of course, we vote. In fact, more than half a million more American voters preferred Al Gore to George W. Bush in 2000, but Bush took office and named Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005 and Justice Alito in 2006. Plus, who could forget 2016, when Americans preferred Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump by 3 million votes? Trump went on to name Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and shamefully pushed through Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October 2020, literally during a presidential election with votes already cast.
I guess that leaves running for office. Hard to miss that the Texas Legislature is over 70% male. Minnesota? Sixty-nine percent male (Senate) and 61% male (House). Just think how many more women will run for office, with 1 in 4 of us pregnant with children we aren't ready for, now forced to bear them.
Understood, Justice Alito.
Dr. Cheryl Bailey, St. Paul
The writer is a retired surgeon.
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Cynthia M. Allen's June 28 commentary "This is no time for gloating" underscores the complete lack of concern so many "pro-lifers" have for women's well-being. Completely missing from her analysis is any acknowledgment that a leading cause of maternal mortality is violence — homicide and suicide. According to a National Institutes of Health 2021 study, "[i]ntimate partner violence during pregnancy has been shown to contribute to maternal mortality from pregnancy-associated deaths" (tinyurl.com/nih-violence).
Unfortunately, there is no standard in place for investigating whether a homicide or suicide might be pregnancy-related — so the stats from data collected between 1991 and 1999 likely underestimate the number of pregnant women killed by people who do not want to be fathers. "The study documented that pregnancy-associated homicides made up 8.4% of reported maternal mortality deaths from all causes." For Allen and her comrades, there is zero interest in addressing this phenomena. There is also no interest in providing safe spaces free from religious judgment and moralizing.
Julie Risser, Edina
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As a male who is a spouse, parent of three daughters and grandparent to three young women, I'm motivated to speak out on the Supreme Court's decision on abortion. With the reality that abortions will be significantly limited for many women, I'm not hearing enough discussion on what more we can do to prevent unwanted pregnancies and to support those children brought to term. I believe now is the time to consider and act on any and hopefully all of the following:
• Male responsibility: More men need to step up to the responsibility of birth control, fathering and child support.
• Foster care: To my understanding, this system is limited in capacity and county supervision and is not the best option over the long haul.
• Adoption: Having adopted three children, I know that while adoption is an important alternative for children needing a loving and accepting family, it can be a difficult option for the biological parent and child over their entire lives.
• Sex education: Young people need/deserve more education about sex both in school and at home. This should also include preventive health counseling for parents (mothers and fathers) who continue to have unwanted pregnancies.
• Access to birth control: This is an important tool to help manage unwanted pregnancies.
• Health services: They must be affordable and more easily accessible.
• Ongoing support for raising a child: It's one thing to advocate for the unborn child, but we also need to face the fact that it takes on average more than $225,000 to raise that child from birth to age 18. Is society willing to take on these costs if the family is unable to provide the support? Efforts to limit support systems such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Head Start Program and visiting nursing services only make this effort harder.
• Mental health services: There must be supportive services for at-risk teenagers who appear to be more likely to have unwanted pregnancies. In addition, pregnancies resulting from rape or incest and fetuses with extreme medical challenges present difficult decisions requiring professional counseling services.
The list of possible actions could go on, but my intent here is to strongly suggest to both sides of this issue that in the reality of the Roe v. Wade decision more can be done to address the challenge of unwanted pregnancies.
John Cushing, Richfield
