Feb. 15, 2013: Our readers write

Historic occasion

Because it is National Black History Month, I would like to let all know of a historic event of sorts that occurred last week.

On Feb. 7, The National Prayer Breakfast was held in Washington, D.C. The event this year was historic, I believe, in that it was the first National Prayer Breakfast where America’s president along with the keynote speaker were black.

Dr. Benjamin Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon and director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital was the keynote speaker.

Dr. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, by President George W. Bush in 2008.

Very nice to see these two well accomplished men at the National Prayer Breakfast at the same time.

For anyone who is interested in viewing Dr. Carson’s speech, it can be seen easily searching YouTube or cnn.org.

Debbie Bayles

Radcliff

Birthing center should be a choice

I find it strange that women can have a choice (and a right) to abort their children any way or anywhere, even at home with the “morning after” pill if they want, but that an educated and informed woman must either go out of state or hire an illegal lay midwife to have their children born in the environment of their choice.

Women have been giving birth to their children at home for centuries, way before hospitals were established. Now, with good prenatal care, nearly all life-threatening conditions are discovered before the child’s birth. 

How great would it be to have that center here in Elizabethtown? It would be close to a good hospital where, if complications arise, the mother easily could get emergency help.

To have a birthing center like the one being proposed in Monday’s paper would be a real advancement, not only to our own community and those surrounding, but also to our state. Kentucky is a state known for only siding with doctors and hospitals. Even though we have a school of midwifery that is well known in other parts of the country, we cannot seem to benefit from it. How ironic. We should be leading the country in centers like these. Yes, it should have accountability and be certified, but please let us have a choice.

It’s common knowledge childbirth is every hospital’s lucrative source of income, there is no wonder they would fight it so adamantly. Their major concern is not women’s health. If so, they would not be fighting so hard against a little clinic where women actually have the option to give birth where and how they chose — in a safe, caring environment.

If Elizabethtown can advance so far up the social ladder that we can now have beer and liquor stores on every street corner, then I say let’s make some real progress where informed women can make informed choices in where they can give birth.

Let us chose life.

Cammie Brown

Elizabethtown