Letters to the Editor (Aug. 28, 2025)

Elections have consequences

Editor:

Sen. Pat Boone’s letter in the Aug. 8 edition demands a response.

Sen. Boone says immigrants should come here “the right way, the way my ancestors did.” A lot of today’s immigrants are trying to come here the right way — and they are being deported, even while following the rules and having no criminal record, and they are being sent to be tortured in other countries.

Would Jesus (a refugee) support those cruel policies especially of separating families and then losing their children?

I asked Sen. Boone how bad life would have to be for him to abandon his home and walk 2,000 miles to another country with nothing but the clothes (and possibly young children) on his back. This is what today’s refugees are doing. He had no answer for that. What did Jesus say about how to treat other people, especially immigrants? (See Matthew 25 35:45)

If Sen. Boone truly cared about the lives of babies, he would oppose the Trump regime’s policies of slashing SNAP and Medicaid programs, which are lifelines to struggling single mothers. Are those children important to the senator?

If he cared about older children, he’d oppose the Trump regime’s policies of slashing other social safety nets that help with child care and free lunches in schools.

The senator’s comment that Democrats’ priority remains “fixated on further pushing women to choose abortion” is nonsense. Abortion is just one of many options that are available to women. The key factor is that each woman should make a fully informed reproductive choice for herself. Competent health care demands that women be informed about all options, not just the non-abortion options.

Most of the work in local women’s clinics is not even abortions — it’s health care for women, especially poor women who have nowhere else to go for their care. A local clinician told me that only 25 percent of their work is abortion-related. Many abortions are due to a non-viable fetus that, if not aborted, threatens the life of the mother.

Sen. Boone, how many women are you willing to kill to meet your goal of eliminating Medicaid payments to clinics, which will eliminate their ability to get any care?

Sen. Boone, if you really want to reduce abortions, why do you oppose teaching sex education in public schools? The states that offer comprehensive sex education in schools have reduced the need for abortions by significantly lowering the teen pregnancy rate. (See Colorado’s 78 percent drop from 1991-2022.)

Sen. Boone, I agree that “elections have consequences,” and we are seeing the consequences now in the Trump regime’s violations of the U.S. Constitution (free speech and due process). Corporations, law firms and schools are being bullied. This is how countries become fascist.

That is what Sen. Boone voted for and, for those who voted for Sen. Boone, is that what you voted for?

To find out more about our legislators’ voting records see scorecard.cvnm.org and for contact information, see nmlegis.gov.

Paul Kinzelman

Peralta